


You and Me and the Devil Makes Three

by girlspines



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Romance, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Horror, Slow Build, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-04-09 02:36:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 99,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4330581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlspines/pseuds/girlspines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Asami is involved in the freak accident death of a classmate, Hiroshi sends her out of Republic City to stay in the family holiday house with her mother, on the edge of a national park known to the locals as the "Spirit Vines". However, the vines are far from a safe haven, as Asami soon discovers. </p><p>Plagued by strange dreams, alien voices, and visions of a monster in the woods, her one consolation is the group of school girls who visit the house everyday to share iced tea with her ... only there's something strange about Korra and her friends too. Something strange, and a little bit magical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A few things before we start.
> 
> Please take the "horror" tag seriously. I do intend for this to be quite scary, and I'm not here to hold anybody's hand through the tougher parts. Be aware of your triggers and look after yourself.
> 
> THAT BEING SAID ...
> 
> This also has plenty of fluff and romance. No smut, though; the "mature" warning is more for adult themes throughout the story, such as bullying, attempted sexual assault (non-graphic), swearing, underage drinking, self-harm, violence, terrible parenting, and drug use. The plot is heavily inspired by cosmic horror writers of the early 19th century; Lovecraft, Machen, Pierce. Perhaps you are wondering why the hell I chose to write a Korrasami AU in such a niche genre. Sometimes, I wonder that myself; I have always felt severely underrepresented in a genre I love, a genre that does not quite love me back. Sadly, horror is still dominated by men, male stories, male heroes, while women are the ones shunted to the sidelines, dumped in graves, raped, mutilated, or otherwise fridged for plot convenience. Witches and witchcraft, therefore, have always held a kind of power over me, which is why this story is also about women, sisterhood, and the love between women, especially between mothers and daughters. People in the comments seem to like it so far, so maybe I'm doing something right.
> 
> Horror is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but if you are already here, reading this introduction, then you may as well give it a shot. Hey, what's the worst that could happen? Either you'll hate it, or you'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm hoping it's the latter.

She was ten. Every day, after school, they came. Like wolves circling a wounded lamb, they came for her.

They called her names. They pulled her hair, her long, luscious, beautiful black hair. Her mother loved her hair, plaited it every morning before she left for school. They tugged out the plait and spat in her face, telling her the braids looked like black worms. And they did not leave her alone until she was bleeding and crying in the dust, her hair all loose, clothes ripped, books scattered, their jeers and insults and threats echoing in her ears, reminding her day after day of what she was.

Asami learnt at a young age that children were smarter and crueller than most adults. Children had the power to instantly know what was wrong with someone, what was different about them, what they were self-conscious about. The children in Asami’s class made sure she knew that _they_ knew she was different from day one.

She was thirteen.

Her primary tormentor during school was a boy named Vincent Kuan. He was three years older than Asami, but he’d repeated two grades and was taking summer classes so he would not have to repeat the eighth grade as well. His school yard victims were mostly the disabled kids, the mentally ill kids, and kids like Asami, whose only crimes were good grades and rich parents. Asami would be sitting in class, doing her algebra exercises or writing an essay, and suddenly she would feel Vincent’s hand, light as a feather, on her lower back, then her spine, then her breast. His hands were always warm and sweaty – _meaty_. That touch was a promise; a promise that, once the bell rang, he was going to come for her. Vincent Kuan always kept his promises.

Asami's only escape from it all was art class. She loved to draw. When she didn't have access to the materials in the art room she drew on whatever she could find: the margins of her textbooks, her pencil case, napkins from the cafeteria. Her arms and hands were constantly covered in an intricate highway of ballpoint pen doodles. Sometimes she drew flowers and birds, other times she drew people: the men and women with briefcases who lined up at the train station everyday, the sour-faced twin sisters who kneaded the dough at the local Turkish bakery, the hip young twenty-somethings walking hand in hand through the city's gardens. Her drawings had a kind of magic to them, the way they came to life as she sketched them on the page, and Asami would draw for hours into the night, completely losing herself in her creations. She experimented with water colour and charcoal and occasionally paint, but always came back to the mechanical pencil her father had bought for her the last time he went to Japan.

At the time, she could not understand why Vincent and the others kept trying to make her life miserable; at the time, all she could think was, _why me?_ It was not until much later, years later, that she would understand how afraid he had been of her. He had not been aware on a surface level that he feared her, but deep down, he was. And maybe Asami was a little afraid of herself, too, but she didn’t know why. Sometimes when she was sketching something she felt like an archaeologist at one of those ancient pyramids in Egypt, slowly but surely uncovering a priceless treasure buried deep in the sand – the treasure was _there_ , she could feel it, it was calling her name, calling for her to bring it to the surface. When she finally saw the shape forming underneath the tip of her pencil, a deep, powerful excitement would rise in her chest, and she felt like she could draw anything in the whole world. Maybe it frightened her because she knew what she was capable of – she knew that she could do so much _more_.

She was sixteen. Still too young to have proper breasts, but old enough to be self-conscious about her body. Everyday Asami would stand in front of her bedroom mirror and examine her long legs and the curve of her hips, poking and prodding at the pale flesh of her belly and buttocks, turning this way and that. Things were changing. She still drew every day, but the subject matter was different. No more beautiful sketches of wildlife or people at the train station – Asami drew monsters. She drew violence and death and the end of the world; she drew the human face not just what it was on the surface, but what it was underneath, behind the mask: ugly, corrupt, cruel, and sick. She did not know why she felt the need to draw such horrible things. She just felt she had to, like it was a hunger she had to sate. Her dreams became confusing, muddled, visceral; she woke up terrified and crying, but could never remember what it was in the dream that had scared her so – the details would slip away once she awakened, like smoke through her hands.

(Once, she opened her sketchbook and tried to draw the terror she’d felt in these dreams, the underlying dread. She did it automatically, without thought; what spilled forth from her hand to her pencil and ended up on the paper scared her half to death. She had sketched a group of humanoid creatures in grotesque animal masks, dancing around a totem pole. Atop the totem pole crouched a hideously bloated spider. The spider had ten thousand eyes, all of them glowing white, and it clung to the pole with a hideous greed, like a gigantic overfed leech, saliva dripping from its pincers. It was _hungry._ So hungry. She did not know why it made her so afraid; she was so upset she tore the awful thing to pieces.)

She was sixteen. Vincent and three other boys came for her after art class, like they always did. This time, though, he had a knife. Art class for Asami was a tiny golden nugget of warmth and hope she kept within herself, like the glowing coals of a fire that could not be snuffed out by the other kids' relentless teasing and taunting. Vincent had realised this – he had seen her with the sketchbook, and he didn’t like it one bit. That day he emptied her bag, pawing through the contents, tossing everything onto the ground until he found it, the beautiful black hand-bound sketchbook her father had also bought for her in Japan. He ripped out the pages, one by one, and stabbed his knife through the cover. There was a kind of manic intensity in his eyes as he did it, and Asami realised two things - one, that Vincent was crazy, and two, that he was going to kill her. After throwing the ruins of her sketchbook on the ground, he hauled her up by the hair and shoved her against the wall of the school gym. She struggled and tried to scream, but he stopped her mouth with his hand, his warm and sweaty hand, and then he whispered into her ear what he was going to do to her.

Asami remembered hearing Vincent unzip his pants. Her whole body had gone limp, and she found herself studying the brick wall inches away from her eyeballs, noting all the tiny little cracks and bumps where the mortar had chipped away. Something was coiled around her spine, something ancient and powerful that had been dozing inside her ever since the day she was born. She felt a brief whisper of it pass through her when she was deep in concentration drawing in her sketchbook, but it had always been so brief, like a gust of wind on her cheek. Now it was running through her body like an electric current, rising, rising, unfurling from the depths of her soul. Vincent hitched up her skirt, his breath hot and ragged in her ear, and Asami found the shape that she had been looking for in the bricks. _Yes_ , she thought, _I see now._ With her right index finger she drew across the wall, tracing over the symbol that she had seen: _hachi_ _,_ the Japanese word for bee.

Vincent screamed.

The hands crushing her against the gym fell away. Asami looked up. The very air seemed to be vibrating, thrumming with an invisible force; the kanji she had written into the wall was burning itself into her retinas, glowing with an awful, eldritch vitality. Then she saw the bees.

One by one, they descended upon Vincent, settling on his arms and face, filling his mouth and ears, dying in the hundreds as the stingers were ripped from their tiny bodies. He screamed and screamed and screamed. His friends tried to swat the creatures away from him, but they just kept coming; the air was thick with them. The bees swarmed him in a solid carpet until every inch of him was covered. He was allergic to bee stings. Asami did not know how she had known this, she had just _known_ , like she had somehow known the kanji for bee, even though she hadn’t written any kanji since she was a little girl. She watched as Vincent flailed and staggered across the school yard, his shrieks of agony nearly drowned out by an unbearable droning buzz, rising in a furious wave. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was dead.

While the police ruled off the death as a freak accident, the three boys who had also been there swore that Asami was the one who had killed him, who had called the bees down on him like lightning. _She’s a witch,_ they insisted to the police, the paramedics, their parents and all the other kids. _She’s a witch and she’ll kill you too if you don’t watch out._ No one believed them, of course.

Witch. Asami found that she actually liked that word. It seemed to her that all the strong, misunderstood women in the world were always called witches or bitches or crones or some other name designed to demonise them. People feared these women because they could not control them. Witches were persecuted, hunted, tortured, burned. _Witch._ She shrouded herself in the word like it was a protective cloak. Instead of punching her in the face during lunch time, the other kids now stayed away from her. She didn’t mind. Being lonely was better than being beaten up. She started growing her hair down past her waist and refused to let her mother tie it back with dainty, girly braids. Her classmates were afraid of her; the story of Vincent’s death had spread throughout the school like wildfire. Asami was glad. They _should_ be afraid of her. She was free.

She was seventeen. Her parents gave her a car, the newest model in her father’s line of ‘Satomobiles’. It was painted all black, the same colour as the hair she had inherited from her mother. The engine burned hot as hell-fire and roared as loud as a dragon. Asami spent her nights driving. Republic City was beautiful at night. During the day it was as ugly as a weeping sore, ugly, ugly, ugly. Republic City at night was like a virtual reality, a secret glow-in-the-dark neon world hidden behind walls of faceless, grey concrete. She drove to the entrances of abandoned buildings and spent hours wandering through them in the dark, tracing symbols across the long-forgotten walls. There was already lots of graffiti down there, boastful tags in obnoxiously loud colours, but none of these delinquent scribbles had power. She wondered if there were others like her, who could do the things she could do. She wondered how many women had kept this power guarded closely in their hearts, and how many of them had been killed for it. Nameless, voiceless women, but she would learn their names eventually. Drawings, words, _names_ , that was her power.

She was seventeen, sitting on the hood of her car watching the morning sun spread across the sky in a fiery pool of liquid light. It was a beautiful and terrible thing, the sun. It gave them light and life and warmth; yet scientists predicted that in a few billion years, the sun would fry the Earth and everyone on it alive, and that was how the world was going to end. _Witch._ She had drawn the kanji for bee in the bricks, and Vincent Kuan, the boy who had hissed in her ear that he was going to rape her with a knife as he forced her skirt up, had dropped dead. And Asami Sato had felt nothing, nothing at all, except an incredible feeling of release.


	2. The Silver House

Shortly after her daughter's seventeenth birthday, Yasuko Sato announced that they were moving out of Republic City for a short break. Asami was swiftly and quietly pulled out of school in the middle of the semester, just before her senior prom.

The Sato family owned three holiday houses: one in the Caribbean, another in Hokkaido, and a third just an hour's drive from Republic City. The latter, known as the Silver House, was an elaborate mansion that had been built an unknown number of years ago. Whether it had been first owned by a person called Silver, or someone had just found the name fitting for some reason, Asami did not know; it had been in her family ever since her great-grandfather had crossed the sea to escape the atomic bombs falling on his homeland. The building stood within the perimeter of a national park known as the 'Spirit Vines'—an enormous, sprawling forest that was steadily spreading further outwards, getting closer to Republic City every year. Originally a world heritage site, the vines became an urban legend after a group of tourists disappeared in their midst in the late-1990s. No trace of them had ever been recovered except for their backpacks, which had been left in a neat circle around the remains of a still-smouldering campfire. The bewildered authorities had even found plates of half-eaten food, still warm and completely left alone by animals and flies—as if all thirty-one members of the tour group had suddenly decided to go for a walk halfway through breakfast and never come back.

Asami had not spoken a word at home since the death of Vincent Kuan. For two whole weeks, she stayed inside her room and refused to come out no matter how many times her mother knocked on her door. She also stopped eating; the dinners that the housemaids brought up to her room were either ignored completely or returned almost untouched to the kitchen. Believing that she was suffering from shock, Yasuko spoke with Hiroshi bout sending her to a psychologist, but he refused to sign the referral form. "I don't need a quack telling me what I already know," he said gruffly, peering at Asami over the screen of his laptop. He sniffed, as if he didn't like what he was seeing, and returned his attention back to the columns of complex spreadsheets before him. "She spends too much time cooped up in her room. Sunshine and exercise, that's what she needs."  
  
"Will you take her, then?" Yasuko enquired, pouring more beer into his glass. There was the hint of a challenge in her voice, but Asami didn't think her father noticed.  
  
"Honey, you know I'm too busy with these clients," he said absently. "Maybe a trip up to the countryside will be better for the both of you.  _She_ can channel her female hormones or teenage angst or whatever it is, and you can find a way to work off that Christmas weight." He looked up. "What? You  _have_ put on a few pounds since December, Yasu."  
  
_Oh, nicely done,_ Asami thought, as she watched her mother's face redden, her knuckles whitening around the beer bottle she held. Yasuko's anger in the air was palpable, but the discussion was over. Hiroshi had already forgotten about it; his attention was sucked in by the white glow of the laptop, where all those millions of shareholder dollars sat balanced on a knife's edge between profit and financial disaster. The strangest (but perhaps not the most surprising) thing was, by Monday morning, Yasuko seemed to have also forgotten about her frustration with her husband, and began to act as though a stay at the Silver House had been her idea in the first place.   
  
"It's probably better this way, without him," she said, as they slowly crossed Kyoshi bridge in Asami's car. "He's never been the most outdoorsy personality. And it'll be just us girls, won't that be fun?" Her eyes flicked to Asami in the rearview mirror, and Asami, who was sitting in the back passenger seat, quickly pretended to be asleep. "Well, your father is not very outdoorsy, nor is he the soft, sensitive type, but that's okay. Different strokes for different folks. If you want to talk to me, Asami, then I won't judge you for it. I promise."

Asami tried to imagine the look on her face if she said, _Actually, there is something I'd like to talk to you about. I killed a boy. He was going to hurt me, so I killed him._ _And I feel nothing—not distress, not anger, not sadness,_ _not even regret_ _._ _Does that make me sick, mom?_

The outbound traffic was sparse, and they made it into the countryside within the hour. The trees seemed thicker than Asami remembered, and wilder; many of the familiar landmarks had been completely swallowed by the vines since their last visit. It took them an extra twenty-five minutes to find the turn-off: a gravel road, lined by rows and rows of enormous, brooding oaks that cast the driveway in near darkness. Yasuko switched off the GPS and pulled the car slowly into reverse.

"I didn't think we were going to find it," she said to Asami brightly. She flicked her sunglasses onto her face and climbed out of the car. Asami stayed where she was, peering out the window into the gloom. The car was parked directly parallel to the entrance of the driveway; the Silver House crouched at the end of the row of trees like a cottage in a medieval woodcut. Her mouth went dry.

Yasuko suddenly rapped on the window, making her jump. "Come on, lazybones!"

Reluctantly, Asami peeled herself off the seat and got out of the car. A feeling of unreality hit her at once—the Silver House just looked _wrong_. The wraparound porch seemed to waver in the late afternoon sun, like a mirage in the desert. No birds called; no wind rustled through the trees. The vines were utterly still and silent. But Asami felt it, deep within her gut—a distinct air of awareness, as if the house was actually alive, an alligator sleeping with one eye secretly open. It really did look like a face, she realised. The windows were its eyes, and the front doors looked like a mouth, waiting to eat her up. _You aren't really a house,_ she thought suddenly. _You're just pretending to be a house. You don't fool me._

"When was the last time we were back here?" Yasuko said; she stood next to Asami, and anyone coming up the path behind them could have easily mistaken them for sisters. "Eight years ago? Seven?"

Asami licked her lips. Her blouse was uncomfortably stuck to her back in a haze of sweat, and flies kept buzzing into her ears. The silence stretched on uncomfortably; she tried to swallow, but it was like the flies had filled her throat. It was the heat; this deep into the vines, the temperature had become nearly unbearable, oppressive.

"How long are you going to keep this up, Asami?" Yasuko said sadly. "Are you going to ignore Katara while you're here, too?"

 _Katara._ How could Asami have forgotten? Katara was a woman in her late sixties who had been the caretaker of the Silver House since before she was born. She had a limp and a cane and a handshake that was as strong as steel, and she always kept packets of gummy bears, Asami's favourite, in her crisp white work shirt that she would give to Asami every time she saw her. The memories were slowly coming back to her now, like tiny trickles of water flowing through a blocked up riverbed; Asami couldn't believe she had somehow let the old woman fade from her mind. Katara had a smelly pipe that she would always smoke on the lawn at twilight, and when she wasn't working she liked to wear long dresses with different patterns on them and have her hair down with two loops that framed her face. Sometimes she would visit Republic City to look after Asami while her parents were away on their various business trips and parties across the country, and every time she came Asami would draw her a picture, which Katara would always place in her handbag with great care, like it was something fragile and precious.

Yasuko sighed when Asami yet again made no reply. "Come on, then. Let's not keep her waiting."

They walked up the driveway, their wheeled travel bags crunching loudly on gravel. The front doors opened as they got closer, and Katara, looking exactly as Asami remembered, limped down the steps, throwing out her arms to embrace both women. "Hello, hello, hello!" she said cheerfully. "Who is this beautiful young lady standing in front of me? My goodness, Asami, the last time I saw you, you were barely up to my waist! Now you're, what, 5'8?"

"She's just over six feet," said Yasuko.

Katara put both her hands on Asami's face and kissed her cheek. "You should be a model," she said. "You have the looks, the height, the body. Don't tell Hiroshi I said that – I'm guessing he still wants you to take over Future Industries?"

"When she's older, yes," Yasuko said. "She's got a brilliant mind. She sketches all these fantastic machines and inventions off the top of her head without using any references, and they're the most inspired designs, Katara, they make you wish you'd thought of the idea first."

"That's wonderful," Katara said to Asami. "As long as you're doing something creative, dear heart, don't let all that talent go to waste. Spin around for me, let me get a good look at you." Asami did as she was told, rotating slowly on the spot. Katara smiled up at her. "You look just like your mother, you know that? Peas in a pod. Oh, it's _so_ good to have you both down here again. Hiroshi couldn't make it?"

Yasuko shook her head apologetically. "No. You know what he's like."

Katara made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "Would it kill him to take a vacation once in a while? The world won't end if Hiroshi Sato stops working. Ah well. It's still great to see you both. Come in."

She ushered them onto the porch, where a large tray holding a jug of iced tea and orange cake sat on a rickety old coffee table. Katara insisted on carrying their bags inside the kitchen, and when she got back, she made them sit around the table on cushions while she poured the tea into mugs and sliced up the cake. "I'm sorry I didn't call you in advance," Yasuko said. "This was kind of a last minute thing. Do you think you could make up two bedrooms for us?"

"Already done," said Katara, pursing her wrinkled lips as she lit her pipe. "Raava knows this place needs other people living in it again. You can both have the rooms upstairs – you'll have the whole floor to yourselves."

"We'll only be here for a short while. Maximum of a month. We'll help you out around the house as much as we can."

Katara waved her hand dismissively. "Don't be silly. What do you pay me for? You're on vacation, Yasuko, so start acting like it. Although, I will need a bit of help in the garden. My leg isn't the best these days, I'm afraid."

"Fair enough," Yasuko said. "I must say, the weather is lovely here this time of year. I think we made the right decision in coming down, Asami."

Her mother was right about the weather, Asami had to admit. The river still flowed close to the house, and the view from the porch where they sat drinking their iced tea was truly spectacular. Great white birds with enormous wings stood along the riverbank, nipping at fish in the water; other birds called to one another in the trees, and Asami even saw a mother duck with her ducklings waddling carefully through the rushes. The sun was low in the sky but it was still boiling hot; Yasuko had pushed up the bottoms of her jeans and was frantically fanning the mosquitoes off her face with a rolled up copy of the _Han River Gazette_. Katara had her cane across one knee and was keeping herself cool by running some ice cubes from a bucket at her elbow across the back of her neck. "Look out," she said suddenly. "We've got company, ladies."

She popped the ice cube into her mouth and pulled a pair of binoculars from the folds of her skirt. A group of schoolgirls walked along the riverbank directly in front of the house, bags slung casually over their shoulders, socks and shoes dangling from their fists. One of them dipped her foot in the river and thrust a shower of water towards her friends; the air split with their startled shrieks, and then they all began to chase each other up the shoreline, splashing and laughing and screaming with delight.

"Hey!" called Katara, leaning over the edge of the porch with the binoculars pressed to her eyes. "You girls behave yourselves now, or I'll call Ms. Shen on you!"

"We weren't doing nothing, Katara!" one girl shouted back; she broke off with a loud squeal as one of her companions dropped a clump of dripping wet river weeds down her dress. Rounding on her friends, she grabbed the culprit by the shoulders and wrestled her noisily into the water.

"Weren't doing nothing, my hat!" said Katara, brandishing her pipe. "What's it going to be, girls? Am I going to call Ms. Shen or are you going to come up here and get your iced tea?"

"Alright, alright, we're coming, don't get your hair loopies in a twist!"

Asami watched as the girls ran eagerly up the hill, laughing and cat-calling one another. They were clearly from a private school; their mud-streaked uniforms were pale blue, and their white hats were donned with flapping black ribbons of rich velvet. Girls who had to be Asami's age but seemed much younger, and filled with much more life and laughter; girls with braces and freckles, tall girls, short girls, normal girls who were stressed out about normal girl things, like love and school and dumb parents. They crowded the porch, eagerly taking the iced tea Katara offered them and sneaking curious glances at Asami and Yasuko.

"Look at the state of your uniforms," Katara scolded. "Poor Ms. Shen is going to have a fit."

"You’ll help us wash them, though, Katara?" said one of the girls hopefully.

"Of course I will. It's not like you girls can look after yourselves, can you?"

The girl who had spoken seemed to be the leader of the group; she was shorter than Asami and dark-skinned, with eyes that were an astonishing shade of light blue, like a pair of faded Levis. She carried herself with an easy, confident swagger, leaning against the rail of the porch and wringing out her wet hair onto the grass. Asami did not realise she was staring until the girl looked around and shot her a crooked grin.

"I'm Korra," she said. "Who are you? I don’t think we’ve seen you around Katara's place before."

"Girls, this is Yasuko Sato and her daughter, Asami," said Katara pleasantly. "They're the owners of the Silver House. I just look after it for them. I've told you all that a million times."

"Wait, Sato? _The_ Sato? Your dad's the car dude?" said Korra, her eyes still on Asami. "Wow. Are you on holiday, or are you living here now?"

"We're just here for a holiday," Yasuko replied. "How do you girls know Katara?"

"We go to a boarding school just up the river," Korra explained, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. "You ever heard of Sacred Heart Girls'? It's like, _super_ prissy. We come down here after classes because Katara makes the best iced tea in the whole wide world."

" _After_ classes?" Katara scoffed. "You also come here _during_ classes, as I recall."

"That just goes to show how good your iced tea is, Katara." Korra nodded at Asami and Yasuko. "Am I right, or am I right?"

"As rain," Yasuko laughed. Asami just stared at her feet. She didn't like the way Korra was looking at her. Her face was too open, too honest. Asami could always tell when someone was being genuine and when they weren't. A lot of the time when people smiled, it didn't reach their eyes; Korra's smile lit up her whole face.

Katara turned to Yasuko. "You remember Pema and Tenzin, don't you? Well, Jinora here is their oldest child. Korra, are you going to introduce your friends to our guests?"

"Oh – yeah!" One by one, Korra pointed to her friends. "This is Kuvira, this is Opal, and this is Jinora—wait, Katara already said that. Don't worry, we'll try not to bother you too much while you're here."

"Not at all," Yasuko said warmly. "You're most welcome to come by every day and share iced tea with us. Are you all the same age?"

"Oh, Korra's the oldest," the big girl, Kuvira, announced. She was taller than Korra, with an intimidating, bold-featured face. Her dark hair had come loose from its long plait in the water fight and hung down her back in frazzled corkscrews. The other girls seemed to find her comment very funny for some reason: they all laughed, except Korra, who just rolled her eyes.

"We're all seventeen," she said to Yasuko. "And Jinora's a year younger than us. She doesn't say much—don't take it personally."

Out of the four, only Jinora had managed to stay dry. She stood in the back of the group, regarding Asami intently with large brown eyes that were the exact colour of earth just after rain. Asami was normally used to being stared at, but there was something about Jinora's silent, watchful gaze that gave her goosebumps. She tried to look away, but those dark eyes kept drawing her back in, like an invisible hook. That was when she heard the voice in her mind: not a thought, but a voice, speaking as clearly as if someone was speaking into her ear.

_You don't need to be afraid._

She choked on her iced tea. Yasuko, concerned, touched her arm; Asami brushed her off. She glanced quickly back at Jinora. _What the hell?_ The other girls hadn’t noticed a thing; they were all talking to Katara, their questions and gossip overlapping one another, all fighting for her attention. _Did I hear that_ _voice_ _in my head just now?_ Asami wondered.

Next moment, there was nothing—she completely blanked. Like someone had just wiped her mind clean like a blackboard. _What is this?_ she thought helplessly. A feeling—more bizarre than anything she had ever experienced—of phantom fingers moving through her brain, rummaging violently in her memories like they were individual files in an enormous bound folder: she was six again, tasting blood in her mouth as the other kids pushed her off the playground swing; she was ten, crying in the toilets by herself during recess; she was sixteen, watching Vincent Kuan viciously rip her sketchbook to shreds with the blade of his knife. Then he was lying on his back, his face swollen beyond recognition, twitching, dying bees crawling from the corners of his mouth and lifeless eyes—

( _you killed him_ )

( _witch_ )

" _Stop_ _it!_ "

Asami leapt to her feet; now everyone on the porch was staring at her. Yasuko rose from her chair. "Asami?"

"I'm—I'm fine," Asami said. Her voice came out husky from disuse; she had nearly forgotten what she sounded like. Tears of embarrassment stung her eyes; she could not bear to look at the other girls, especially Korra. "I just—I'm sorry. I don't feel well."

"It's okay, Asami," Yasuko said quickly. "Go."

Breathing hard, Asami fled inside, slamming the heavy screen door shut behind her. It was wonderfully cool and dark inside the house. She ran up the stairs two at a time, and only just managed to reach the toilet before she vomited. Her heart slammed against her chest like a panicked bird trapped in a cage. The tears came, pattering like rain down her cheeks, and she moaned aloud as the memory of the bees crawling from his dead lips flashed again before her eyes. She jammed two fingers down her throat and forced the bile to rise again; she had to purge herself, had to cleanse her body and mind and soul of Vincent and his meaty, wandering hands and his pale white eyes, gleaming like two silver coins as she struck him down.

She stayed there for a very long time.

*

"Asami? You awake?"

A square of light fell across the length of the bed Katara had made up for her. Yasuko's silhouette stood in the doorway, and she called Asami's name softly. Asami lay on her side buried in blankets, but she was wide awake, having drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep for hours. It was finally dark outside her window; Korra and her friends were bound to be long gone by now. She closed her eyes and pretended to be fast asleep.

She heard Yasuko give a resigned sigh. "Asami, I know you well enough to know when you're pretending. I'm your mother. Please don't shut me out."

 _Go away,_ Asami wanted to scream. Deep shivers wracked her body, and she could feel the beginnings of a fever steadily heating up her skin. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball and be lost in the oblivion of sleep.

"Katara left some food downstairs if you're hungry. Do you want me to bring you some?"

Asami had not eaten anything since Katara's orange cake, and she'd vomited all that up hours ago. Her empty stomach gave a loud, traitorous growl.

"Asami?"

She rolled over, pushing the blankets off her face. "I'm not hungry."

"Okay," Yasuko said softly. "That's okay, sweetheart. I’m just glad you’re talking again. Can I sit?"

Asami reached out and flicked on the lamp sitting on her bedside table. Yasuko perched on the end of the bed and looked down at her daughter with an expression on her face that Asami did not recognise at first. Then she realised it was regret.

"I know how they treated you, Asami."

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat; she tried to look away, but Yasuko took her hand, pulling her back.

"You never said anything, but you didn't need to. It was in the way you carried yourself when you came home from school, a look you had in your eyes—you were good at hiding it from us, but I still knew. I'm sorry."

"Don't, mother," Asami said. "I don't want to talk about it."

"That boy," Yasuko said, "the boy who died. I've—I've heard stories about his father. Apparently the son wasn't much better."

Asami said nothing.

"Asami, _please_ ," said Yasuko. "Talk to me. I need to know. What was Vincent doing to you, behind the gym that day?"

Her speech remained lodged in her throat; she couldn't breathe.

"I don't—I don't—" Asami shut her eyes and tried to block it out, the feeling of Vincent's hand on her skirt, moving up, up, and his horrible, gurgling shrieks, the way his arms and legs jerked and kicked as his face swelled and turned black, choking off his lungs; she sat as rigid as a statue, unmoving, her eyes squeezed shut, as her mother held her hand and waited.

"He hurt you, didn't he?" Yasuko said, in a very quiet voice. "Asami? It's okay."

"He—he tried," Asami said at last. "I mean, he _did_ hurt me before—the whole time I was there he hurt me, but that day—that day, when he wanted to hurt me real bad—he—he had a knife, and he tried to—he tried to—"

Yasuko gently squeezed her hand. "It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry we made you feel like you couldn't tell us how they really treated you. Your father isn't home a lot, so he couldn't possibly understand—but _I_ should have done more."

"I'm going to have to go back there, aren't I?"

"Only for two weeks, honey. Hiroshi wants you to finish your exams. He's adamant on you getting into the university in Ba Sing Se, he won't have it any other way." Yasuko paused. "If I had the choice, I wouldn't send you back there at all. I've always preferred Republic City to Ba Sing Se."

"Kids are all the same, no matter what school you go to," Asami said. "It's not your fault. I just—I just _don’t_ belong. They know that. Something—something about me just scares them. People are always afraid of what they don’t understand."

"You're a beautiful, intelligent, kind, and charismatic girl," Yasuko said. "I love you. I don't tell you that often enough. Neither does your father. But we _do_ love you, Asami."

"I know. I love you too. I don’t say it enough, either."

Yasuko wrapped an arm around her shoulders; after a moment's hesitation, Asami rested her head in the crook of her neck. Yasuko was warm and comforting and soft, and her hair smelled like the apple-scented herbal shampoo she liked to use. Asami couldn't remember the last time she'd shared this kind of closeness with someone; the magnitude of her isolation hit her right then and there. She raised her arms and wrapped them around Yasuko's waist, hugging her with all her might.

"Can you tell me something?" she whispered. "Why did you give up drawing?"

"I didn't give it up, exactly," Yasuko said. "I just—put it on hold. I didn't want to be doing commissions while I was raising you."

"Yeah, but I'm not a baby any more. You could start again, couldn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know. The business wasn't that successful, and I was never really that good..."

"All artists say that, mom. I bet people loved your work. I wish you'd show me some of the stuff you designed for Hiroshi."

"Well, I was very young when I collaborated with your father." Yasuko gave her a strange, sad smile. "But that chapter of my life is done for now, I'm afraid."

Her tone suggested that she wished to move on from the topic; Asami thought that was rather odd, as she knew Yasuko had a great passion for art, and had been most enthusiastic about Asami learning to draw herself. She didn't press the issue, though; there was something else that was bothering her more.

"Did you and Hiroshi ever teach me how to write kanji properly?"

Yasuko's forehead creased slightly. "Well, we _tried_ ," she said. "Your father always wanted you to retain your heritage, so we got you a tutor. You were quite fluent at one stage, but then you didn't want to learn any more, because the other kids at school kept teasing you about it."

"I don't remember," Asami said.

Yasuko stroked her hair. "Don't remember what, sweetheart?"

Asami shook her head. "Never mind. Do you think you could teach me some while we’re here?"

"Of course," Yasuko said. "I'm not very good, but I can give you the basics. Did you bring your sketchbook with you?"

Asami swallowed. "No."

"Well, I'm sure Katara has some paper somewhere. We can make flash cards or something. Now, are you going to come down and eat?"

Her stomach let off another loud rumble. "Just give me a moment."

Yasuko smiled at her, kissed her on the cheek, then got up and left the room. Asami waited until her mother had closed the door completely before getting out of bed and opening up her suitcase, which she'd packed away in the closet. She had lied. Her new sketchbook was in the bottom of her bag. She had bought it for a dollar from the local convenience store before they had left, but had not dared to touch it. The paper was thin and cheap, and the spine was already coming apart. She had piled all her clothes and toiletries on top of it, as if doing so would make it magically disappear, but the impulse to draw was so strong and so ingrained within her that it was nearly impossible to ignore – those ratty, empty pages whispered to her while she slept, and she would wake up with the words still on her lips, as if she had been repeating them to herself in the night: _feed me._ _Feed me, Asami._ It was dangerous. Somehow, the kanji she had drawn with her finger and the bees that had attacked Vincent were connected to the sketchbook. Her art teacher had always said her drawings looked real – almost too real. It was dangerous and powerful and beyond her understanding, so she kept it hidden at the bottom of her suitcase, in the hopes that if she just ignored it, then the alien voices would finally leave her alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yasuko Sato is alive in this fic, bc reasons. I've just been drowning in a lot of Asami/Yasuko mother-daughter feels lately and I'm going to drag you all down with me ok???


	3. Korra

The next morning, Asami woke up boiling hot and covered in sweat. The sun had risen directly in front of her side of the house, turning her room into a sauna. She kicked off the covers and opened her window to let some air in. The sound of the birds calling to each other outside was deafening; across the lawn, the river sparkled like diamonds as the sunlight reflected brilliantly off its surface. The house was quiet; her mother was either still asleep or had already woken up and gone exploring.

Asami's room came with a private en suite, and she spent a good ten minutes in the shower running a razor over her legs and massaging some of Katara's shampoo into her scalp. Her hair was nearly past her belly button now and absolutely refused to lay flat on her head no matter how many times she ran her straightener through the lengths; she would try clamping a section of hair with the tongs, counting to ten, then releasing and spraying it with hairspray, only to have it bounce back up onto itself, returning to its usual messy wave. Eventually Asami gave up on attempting to tame her hair and walked downstairs with it falling freely down her back, like a spill of blank ink on pale white paper.

Katara greeted her at the bottom of the stairs and immediately steered her into the sunroom, where a table positively groaning with food was waiting for her. There were stacks of hot, buttered toast, bowls of fresh fruit and yoghurt, homemade orange juice, porridge, pastries of every size and colour, platters of bacon, fried eggs, sticky rice, even natto, which she had not eaten since she was a child. She grabbed a plate and ended up having a little bit of everything. Halfway through her meal Yasuko swept into the room, wearing an enormous floppy straw hat and carrying an armload of sweet-smelling magenta roses.

"Fresh from the garden!" she told Asami happily. "Where should I put them, Katara?"

"I'll put a vase in every room, that should brighten the place up a bit," Katara said. "What say you, Asami?"

Asami nodded. "They're beautiful."

"Aren't they?" Katara said proudly. "Your mother's spent all morning pruning them for me. Thanks for doing that, by the way, Yasuko. It makes my job a whole lot easier."

"Any time!" Yasuko leaned over the table, examining the plate of pastries; after careful deliberation, she picked up a chocolate croissant and bit into it. "Do you have any plans for today, Asami? I was thinking we could break out the roller skates, if you're up for it."

Asami lowered her bowl of natto from her mouth and chewed slowly. "Wow, talk about a throwback. Do we even still own those skates?"

"They're in the cupboard under the stairs, where you last left them," Katara called out, as Yasuko wandered into the hallway. "Do you remember skating for the first time with your mother and I, Asami? Oh, how you _hated_ it."

"I cried because I kept falling over, but you both thought it was hilarious."

"If you're going to go skating along the boardwalk, best to leave now before it gets too hot," Katara advised. "I'll have lunch ready for you when you get back. How does fresh cod from the river sound?"

"It sounds like you're trying to fatten us up, Katara," Asami said. "I swear, I'm going to go up like three dress sizes from living here."

"Good. A growing girl like you needs some meat on her bones." Katara looked at Asami up and down critically. "You have the exact same body type as your mother, you can eat and eat as much as you like and you never put on any weight."

"Found them!" Yasuko came back into the room, holding up two ancient pairs of roller skates. "Oh, honey, I don't think they're going to fit you. You've grown so much since you last wore them." 

When Asami was six, her parents had bought her a pair of yellow and red roller skates that were exact replicas of the ones from her favourite show as a kid, _Cardcaptors._ Of course she had never skated before, but she was a young impressionable girl, and all young impressionable girls want to be like their female heroes on TV. Yasuko was already a reasonably good skater, and that summer at the Silver House she and Katara had taken Asami down to the river to teach her how to stand up on her skates. It had been a complete disaster, and Asami had tearfully sworn that she would never skate again. However, two summers later, she had found the skates while cleaning out her room. This time, her father was also staying at the Silver House, which almost never happened; somehow Yasuko managed to persuade him to leave his phone and his laptop behind to join her and Asami for a short, golden afternoon of roller skating along the boardwalk. Like the first time, Asami had been in the middle with her mother on her right, but now Hiroshi held onto her left hand instead of Katara, Hiroshi had held her hand and skated with her; he hadn't been very good at it but she knew he had done this with Yasuko many times, because Yasuko used to tell her about their first dates and how they had gone skating together on the Republic City docks once at sunset when she was still an artist and he was a struggling engineering student, and that day when they skated together in front of the Silver House Asami had seen a hazy, misty look in his eyes that she hadn't seen before, and she realised that this must have been how Hiroshi had looked when Yasuko had first met him, this was how her father looked when he was happy.

"She can borrow mine," Katara said, lifting herself up from her chair. "The blue and white ones. Top shelf."  
  
Asami finished her breakfast, then was forced to sit still for five minutes while Yasuko rubbed some sunscreen on her face, arms, and neck. Skates in hand, they bade goodbye to Katara and stepped outside the house. The air was heavy with the smell of freshly cut grass and a steady chorus of frogs croaking in the undergrowth; they walked down to the water's edge, where the lawn faded off and the wooden boardwalk began. Twisting and dipping with the shape of the river, the boardwalk stretched along approximately fifty thousand hectares of wetlands, walking tracks, and forest. Asami had never reached the end, but she remembered her mother saying that the boardwalk finished where the river met the mountains, at the wildest heart of the spirit vines.

It took some time for them to stand up straight on their skates. By the time they managed to do so without falling, the sun was high in the sky, the flies were out in full force, and sweat patches were glistening on their backs. Slowly but surely, they rolled down the boardwalk, gripping each other's hands for support. After a while, Asami gathered up the courage to let go of Yasuko's hand and skated ahead at a faster pace, the wind flying through her hair and the forest around her blurring into runny watercolours of green trees and blue sky and brown river. She felt light again, weightless, but it was not the apathetic kind of weightlessness that had engulfed her since Vincent's death, like she was a balloon floating without a string, disconnected from her physical body; it was a different kind of weightlessness, a sense that she was soaring, high on sensory overload, gulping down cold lungfuls of air as she watched the countryside flash by on either side, seeing and feeling everything for what felt like the first time. It was not quite happiness, but it was close to that. It had been too long, far too long, since she had gone skating.

"Oh, Asami, look!" Yasuko exclaimed from behind her. Asami slowed down and spun around; her mother had stopped all together and was bending over the left hand side of the boardwalk, where a tiny, electric purple flower was peeking between the slats. "It's an orchid!" she said excitedly, when Asami skated back to look. "Don't step on it, they're rare around here!"

Yasuko had a camera hanging from a strap around her neck that she took everywhere with her. After giving up her commercial art business, she'd developed a huge obsession with taking photos of everything she encountered on a day-to-day basis. Over the years, Yasuko had managed to collate whole libraries of photos on their home computer, the average content of which was about 60% Asami, 10% family group shots during various overseas trips or public events, 20% disgruntled Hiroshi Sato at the dinner table with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, and 10% pictures of neighbourhood cats or brightly-coloured caterpillars she'd found in their back garden.

Asami watched as her mother removed the lens cap on her camera and crouched to take a photo of the orchid. "This is why you need Facebook. We could put all these photos up on there and make Hiroshi jealous that he's not here with us."

"I've never understood the need for social media," said Yasuko. "If I want to talk to someone, I'll just talk to them face to face, like we are doing now. Facebook is just a filtered, watered-down version of human interaction." She aimed the camera at Asami. "Smile, 'Sami!"

Asami flinched, taken off guard. "Did you seriously just take a photo of me? _Mom_!"

"What? You're so photogenic, do you really blame me for wanting to take photos of you?"

"Ugh. Of course _you_ think I'm photogenic, you're already biased."

"I'll speak from an artistic perspective, then. You're beautiful and it's time you owned up to that."

"I don't want to hear it. Just delete the photo, okay? Or at least promise that you won't take any more surprise snaps of me. _Ever._ "

Yasuko pouted at her. "Fine. But will you take one with me now as a memorial of this trip, O daughter of mine?" _  
_

Asami frowned. "Only one."

Yasuko ended up taking about a million photos. The first hundred shots were out of focus close-ups of their foreheads, as like most middle-aged parents, she was god awful at taking selfies; finally Asami snatched the camera from her and adjusted it so that they were both in frame, and the results were marginally better after that. Then Yasuko insisted that she get single shots of Asami posing awkwardly in her skates with the river in the background, and after that was done she decided that she wanted to capture every possible angle of the purple orchid. Finally her mother was satisfied, but not for long. Barely thirty seconds after they continued their meander down the boardwalk, Yasuko threw out her arm to stop Asami again. Asami's legs locked together and she swore under her breath as the skates slipped precariously underneath her; her mother, taken once more by childlike excitement, did not notice. "Green tree frogs!" she said; Asami looked around in the direction she was gesturing wildly at, just in time to see two tiny frogs disappear into the undergrowth. "Quick, 'Sami, pose, pose!"

"Oh my God, you're so embarrassing."

"You'll thank me one day for this, trust me." Yasuko jumped off the boardwalk and stomped clumsily down the riverbank on her skates, camera held at the ready. “I've always wanted a frog as a pet. I just think they're _so_ cute."

"You say that about everything," Asami said. "But yes, they are pretty cute. Too bad Hiroshi hates animals."

"Your father doesn't _hate_ animals, he just has a lot of allergies. Don't be so hard on him, 'Sami."

"What? I wasn't being hard on him, I was just making a simple statement—"

Yasuko raised her head out of the grass to give her daughter a very stern look. "You know what I mean. Don't think I miss all these passive aggressive comments you keep making."

"He called you fat."

Yasuko raised her eyebrows. "Is  _that_ what you're angry at him for? Really?"  
  
Asami felt her face burning. The sound of the wind in the trees, the birds chattering noisily in the vines, the throaty grumble of the frogs underneath the boardwalk; all of that suddenly seemed very far away. " _He should be here_ ," she said, enunciating the words deliberately and forcefully. "Why does he get to boss us around and tell us where to go like we're his underlings, huh? Yeah, I'm angry at him. Because he's not here. I never see him. I never talk to him. It's not fair." She was shouting now. "I want him  _here_ with us because he's my dad, but all he does is look down at his nose at me like I've disappointed him for daring to have feelings. I watched a fucking kid die, who _wouldn't_ have feelings about that? What do I have to do to get Hiroshi to look at me like I'm his equal? Do I actually have to _hurt_ myself?"

She said all this in a huge rush, and when she stopped talking, she realised that there were tears in her eyes, as well as Yasuko's. Asami's heart was pounding crazily again, as if she'd just run a long distance. Then, immediately, the guilt overcame her. She was furious at her father, but couldn't stand to see her mother cry.

"I'm sorry," she said, in a gentler tone. She stepped off the boardwalk and took Yasuko in her arms. " _Shit_. No, don't cry—I'm really sorry."

"Don't—don't be. I understand, really," Yasuko wept into her shoulder. " _I'm_ upset with him, too. I n-need him just as much as you do—I-I just—I just feel so _helpless._ " She wiped her eyes. "Are—are—are you going to hurt yourself?"

Asami kissed her cheek. "No. No, I'm not. I'm sorry—that was a crappy thing to say."

"It-it's-it's-it's not that Hiroshi doesn't love you or care about you, it's just that Future Industries is his whole life. He c-came from poverty and had to work and claw his way up in order to take care of his f-family. _That's_ why he's never home—he's trying to provide for us, for your children, for your grandchildren, so that you'll never have to go through what his grandfather did. I'm not—I'm not saying this excuses anything, but—"

"I know," Asami said; she'd heard the story many times before. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Yasuko said again. "Well, except for the swearing." She reached out and cradled Asami's hands, raised them to her lips, and gave them a kiss. "I understand that you're really vulnerable right now, and that you're angry at dad for sending you here. And that's okay. You can be angry and vulnerable, if you want. I don't mind. I'll be here for you. We'll get through this together. I'll be with you every step of the way, or if you don't want me to be here, then I'll stay away."

Asami opened her mouth, closed it, and found she really didn't have anything to say. She exhaled, wiped the wetness from her eyes with the back of her hand, then said in a small voice, "I want you here. I want us to go—to go roller skating together."

"That's a good idea." Yasuko laughed. "I can do that. Just after I get a good photo of this cute little froggy. Ah, he's escaping—! Quick, sweetheart, catch him!"

Asami looked down to see one of the frogs leap across the surface of her skates. She swiped at it with her hand, lost her balance, and fell face first into the dirt, revealing to the whole world her underwear. There came the frantic tinkle of bells from the boardwalk; someone let out a shrill, appreciative wolf-whistle. Asami looked around, startled. The dark-skinned girl from yesterday—Korra —sat astride a blue bicycle, grinning mischievously down at her from the crest of the boardwalk.

"Wow, Katara was right! The view from here _is_ incredible!"

"Oh my god, Korra, you are such a pervert!" shrieked Kuvira, screeching to a halt next to Korra. Jinora sat on the back wheel, hanging onto her broad shoulders, and Opal brought up the rear, her bicycle a multi-coloured explosion of streamers and glitter stickers. The four girls appeared to have been picking wildflowers along the boardwalk; they had all decorated their hair with daisy chains weaved together into delicate flower crowns. "Sorry about her," Kuvira said to Asami. "Her foot seems to have a natural affinity for her mouth. She thinks she's being charming."

"Ha! I have more game than you ever will, Kuvira, admit it," called Korra.

Kuvira's eyes narrowed dangerously. " _You_ have more game than me? That's hilarious. When was the last time you hooked up with someone, huh? Kissing random dogs on the street doesn't count."

"That was just _one_ time!" Korra protested. "And he was a fully grown Siberian Husky, how could I not kiss his precious sweet face?"

"Last time we went to Republic City," Opal said to Asami, "Korra saw this massive Siberian Husky and went absolutely ballistic. Not even joking, she actually _screamed_ out loud. The guy who owned the thing nearly called the cops."

"She'd get along with my mother, then," Asami said. "She has a whole photo library at home dedicated to random cats she finds in our neighbourhood."

Korra wrinkled her nose. "I'm not really a cat person, to be honest. They're so shifty—they always look like they're plotting my demise."

"We all have our preferences," said Kuvira. "Well, not _me_ , of course, but I reckon Korra's preference is dogs. Are you sure you aren't a Furry, Korra?"

"I'm _not—_ I don't— _everyone_ likes dogs!" Korra spluttered. "See how she twists my words?" she said to Asami, throwing up her hands. "These girls are all liars, Asami. Kuvira is the biggest liar of all. She sits on a throne of lies."

"We all know where _you'd_ like to sit, Korra." Kuvira grinned wickedly. "On Asami's _face—_ "

"Can you _not_?" Korra said angrily, lashing out with her fist; Kuvira moved to the side, dodging it easily, and swiftly put Korra in a headlock. Korra struggled and twisted, but Kuvira didn't budge, somehow managing to stay upright on her bike without tipping, her expression one of extreme smugness. " _Let—_ _go—_ _of—me!_ "

"If you insist," Kuvira said. She released Korra abruptly, sending her sprawling off the boardwalk and onto the riverbank. Everyone burst into laughter, except Asami, who gasped as Korra fell; without thinking, she went over to her, holding out her hand.

"Are you alright?"

Korra rolled onto her side and pushed herself up with one hand, grinning at Kuvira. "I'm going to pay you back for that one, you evil bitch."

"I think that puts our score at 8-9, with me in the lead," Kuvira said triumphantly. "Really, you're too easy, Korra."

"She's fine," Opal said to Asami. "They have this competition where they tackle each other. Most tackles by the end of the month wins. No, I don't understand it, either."

"And yet," Korra said, brushing grass off her shorts, "Asami showed concern over my wellbeing. I'll take that as a win any day."

There was a loud rustling from the trees and Yasuko pushed herself out from between two trees, sun hat askew, face red and sweaty, but smiling from ear to ear. She waved at Asami frantically and bounced over to them, looping her camera around her neck. "Well, look who it is! Nice day for it, isn't it girls? Now, what were your names again?"

"I'm Kuvira," Kuvira said, pointing to herself. "This is Opal, the quiet one's Jinora, and _that_ grinning fool over there—" she gestured to Korra, who winked at Asami, "is Korra."

"Well, it's lovely to see you all again. Do you not have school today, or—?"

"Uh... we have a free period," Opal said hastily. She elbowed Kuvira in the ribs, who immediately nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

"Yes, we absolutely do _not_ have class right now, nope."

Yasuko slung her arm around Asami's shoulder. "Asami and I were just roller skating. We used to do it all the time when she was younger. Did you know there's a huge population of green tree frogs here? I just saw about five or six down by the river!"

"If you like photographing nature, Mrs Sato, then you should check out the birdlife," said Opal. "All sorts around here. Parakeets, falcons, mockingbirds, loons, cranes—"

Yasuko beamed at her. "Are you a birdwatcher by any chance, Opal?"

"It's just a hobby," Opal said shyly. "My parents gave me this book— _200 Rare_ _Species of the Spirit Vines—_ and I've been spending all semester trying to check off every one. Helps pass the time."

"We have some birdwatching books back at the Silver House I think you'd like," Yasuko said. "Why don't you come back with us and have a bit of a read? The rest of you girls are welcome, too. Katara said she had a huge lunch in mind."

"Katara's making lunch?" Korra said eagerly. "Hell yeah, we'll come! I mean—if there's room for us at the table, we don't wanna intrude—"

"Don't be silly." Yasuko checked her watch. "It's nearly eleven thirty ... there's a lovely lookout about half an hour's walk from here, with all these wheels we can make it in fifteen. Katara should be ready for us by the time we get back."

The group pushed onward. Yasuko skated next to Opal's bike, showing her the photos she had taken. Kuvira and Jinora peddled in front of Asami, who suddenly found herself trapped, with no escape route, next to Korra. "Soooo," Korra said casually. "Asami, right? Are you feeling better?"

Asami looked sideways at her warily. "What?"

Korra's face coloured. "You left," she blurted. "Yesterday. You went back inside and we didn't see you afterwards."

"Oh, yeah." Asami was silent for a moment, studying Korra's face. "Yeah, I wasn't feeling well. Must have been something I ate."

"You're alright now, though?" Korra asked again. The sincerity in her voice was so real, Asami started to feel bad for being so stand-offish.

"Yeah. Sorry for being rude."

"You weren't rude! I just thought we were annoying you. We do that a lot, especially to Katara. She puts up with us, though."

"I don't think Katara puts up with anyone," said Asami. "She genuinely cares about people. You guys especially. I can tell."

"Yeah." Korra smiled. "She—well, she kind of took me in. She's been really passionate about my education, she helped me apply for a scholarship at Sacred Heart. When I graduate, Tenzin—Jinora's dad—is letting me live at his place in Republic City."

"Oh. Are your parents ...?" Asami paused, unsure of what she was trying to ask, or if it was even appropriate for her to ask.

"My parents aren't in the picture. They're … uh, they're both gone."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, no, it's fine! Really. It was a long time ago. I hardly remember it, to be honest. My childhood was basically spent inside the foster system. Then I met Katara about—five years ago now?" Her expression grew soft.

"You love her a lot, huh?" said Asami.

"Like you said. Katara cares." Korra smiled at her, but it was an unfocused smile, a smile lost in memories; then her blue eyes sharpened, and she seemed to snap back into the present. "Anyway! Sorry, I kinda went from zero to a hundred there, didn't I?"

"It's okay. Why don't we talk more about your dog kink?" Asami joked. "Is that some sort of Freudian thing, or …?"

"I'm pretty sure my mom breastfed me properly when I was a baby," Korra said, rolling her eyes. "And I _don't_ have a dog kink. I'm not a fucking Furry, I swear." She chuckled in an embarrassed way and covered her face with her hands. "Damn it, damn it, damn it. I'm normally better at first impressions."

"You're doing fine," Asami assured her. "But if it would make you feel better, I could laugh so it looks like you said something witty and charming."

Korra nodded. "That'll give me time to actually come up with something witty and charming to say."

Asami gave a loud, fake laugh and put her hand on Korra's arm, like she'd just said the funniest thing in the world. They had fallen behind the group; at the sound of Asami's laugh, Jinora whipped around, then punched Kuvira on the shoulder. Kuvira turned and smirked slyly at Korra. "You got a problem?" Korra demanded at once, puffing out her chest.

"No," Kuvira said, quickly turning away. She sped up to Opal and whispered in her ear; Opal looked back at Korra and Asami and grinned. " _Ooooooh_!" she said shrilly, loud enough for Korra to hear. All three of them—Kuvira, Opal, and Jinora—collapsed into fits of hysterical giggles.

"How long are you staying in the Silver House?" Korra asked Asami. Her blush now stretched all the way from her temples to her neck; she looked like she was putting a monumental effort into ignoring the others.

"I'm not sure," Asami said. "Maybe as long as a month."

"I've never skated before." Korra was looking at Asami's skates with admiration. "You make it look so easy. You reckon you could teach me?"

Asami felt her heartbeat quicken in her chest. "Uh, why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you—why would you want to learn from me?"

Korra gave her a goofy, crooked grin and bumped her on the shoulder with her fist. "Because we're friends, you dummy." She suddenly laughed. "Jeez, no need to look so terrified. I don't bite."

"Of course not. I just ..." Asami drifted off. _I just don't have any friends_ , that was what she was going to say. She didn't want to admit that out loud to Korra, though, because then it would lead on to the subject of why she was really staying in the Silver House. She burned to ask Korra the most obvious question, _Why do you want to be friends with me?_ , not ask her but demand from her, because she didn't understand. Asami had always been alone. It wasn't just that she was bullied; people shied away from her instinctively, even adults. She was used to it, though; being alone didn't necessarily mean that she had to be lonely. Or did it? She didn't know. She had lived like this for so long she didn't know any other way to _be_. Maybe it was a joke, a cruel prank. It was exactly the kind of thing the kids at school would do, pretend to be her friend to humiliate her. The thing about Korra, though, was that Asami could see right through her. Her face, her mannerisms, her eyes (there was something magic and sparkling about her eyes, as if the blueness in them was alive, dancing like a firework), betrayed everything; everything from her laugh to her smile to her eager questions was completely, utterly honest. Asami's thoughts chased themselves around in her head like children playing tag with each other, she would think to herself  _children_ _are_ _cruel, crueler than adults_  every day in the playground as she wiped the blood and the dirt from her cheeks, and when she got home she would lock herself in the bathroom and wash the blood away, scrubbing till she was red raw, because sometimes she hoped that if she scrubbed hard enough, she would find a new face underneath, a new person who was actually loved and meant for this world, because the old one didn't fit at all.

"If you teach me how to skate, we can go skating together," Korra said. "The boardwalk goes for ages. There's heaps of great picnic spots, if you know where to look. I can—I can show you. If you want."

Asami looked into Korra's eyes, searching for the lie, the trick, the malice that she was convinced was hiding there. She saw nothing; in fact, the longer she looked into Korra's eyes the more befuddled she became. These girls led such simple lives. She envied them for their tenderness and their innocence, the carefree way they had splashed each other in the shallows of the river and plaited wildflowers into their hair and got angry at each other one moment then forgot about it two seconds later. Asami had never had any female friends; there was something haunting and beguiling about other girls, about the secret pacts they formed with one another and the bonds they all seemed to share, but it was a language she had never been able to understand, locked outside with her hand pressed up against the glass. _I want to try_ , she realised. _This might be my only chance to try._

"Okay," she said. "I'll teach you. And you can show me the places you like to go."

Korra's face split into a sunny, gap-toothed smile. Her smile was so infectious, Asami found herself smiling—really smiling—back.


	4. Raava, Mother of All Living Things

Days at the Silver House were sticky and hot, and the nights were only slightly cooler. Sleep never came to Asami easy no matter the weather; her dreams were not quite nightmares, but they were often disturbing, for reasons she could never remember or properly explain. She had always preferred the night time. When she was younger her mother had told her stories about the Witching Hour, the time after midnight when creatures such as ghosts, demons, and witches were able to cross over from the underworld, and black magic was at its most powerful. These stories had never frightened Asami; rather, she had always found the idea of ghosts and witches and other creatures of the night coming out to play comforting, and she had purposefully kept herself awake, hoping to see one. At seventeen years of age, this habit had not quite left her. She sat next to the window in her room, elbows resting on the sill; a breeze was blowing off the river, caressing her skin gently through the silk nightgown she wore, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. This far out into the countryside, the stars were actually visible, instead of being blocked out by a skyscraper or a greasy veil of air pollution. Asami could hear the crickets rubbing their legs together seductively in the garden, and, once or twice, the distant hoot of an owl from deep within the vines. She looked up at the moon, searching for the cheese, the rabbit, the man, or perhaps a witch, silhouetted in the stars. She wondered if she were to draw any of these things, they would appear before her. Like the bees.

"Asami?" Yasuko popped her head around her bedroom door. "Dad's on the phone."

It had been surprisingly easy spending the day with Korra and her friends—even fun. After lunch with Katara, they had braved the heat for a short match in the tennis court out the back of the Silver House. Asami paired up with Jinora to take on Kuvira and Korra's combined strength, while Opal played referee. Another surprise that afternoon was Jinora—the girl barely spoke enough words to fill a whole sentence, yet on the court she became a one woman army, utterly destroying their opposition with shocking efficiency. Korra and Kuvira had enough athleticism between them to easily beat them but were at each other's throats constantly, allowing Jinora to score while they were distracted. After the match, all four girls had charged, fully-clothed and screaming at the top of their lungs, down the riverbank and into the water. Asami had almost joined in with them but wimped out at the last moment; she sat with Yasuko and Katara instead, who had pulled their chairs from the porch down to the water's edge and were resting their bare feet in the shallows. That was when Korra, drenched to the bone and grinning like the Cheshire Cat, had lunged out of nowhere and grabbed her by the legs; Kuvira wrapped her arms around Asami's waist, and with chants of " _One! Two! Three_!" they both heaved her into the water to rapturous applause and laughter from everyone else.

"Asami," Yasuko said again. Asami jumped a little and looked around.

"Huh?"

"Hiroshi wants to talk to you." Yasuko held out the house phone.

"About what?"

"He just wants to see how you're doing. Give him a chance, okay?"

Reluctantly, Asami took the phone from her. "Hello?"

"Asami," said Hiroshi into her ear. "How are you?"

Asami felt something clench inside her chest at the sound of her father's voice. No matter what she said to Yasuko, she was still mad. She _needed_ to be mad. It took her a second to compose herself; when she spoke again, her voice was flat, calm, and as icy as a glacier.

"I'm fine," she lied. "How are you?"

"Busy."

"I can imagine. So good of you to take a moment from your schedule to call."

"I wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm doing _fine_ ," she repeated. "I went roller skating along the boardwalk today with mom. Katara hasn't changed at all in ten years. We ate fresh fish for lunch."

"Your mother sent me photos of the orchids you found down by the boardwalk," Hiroshi said. "I wish I was there to see it for myself."

"It is very beautiful down here."

There was a painfully awkward pause. Asami waited for him to speak; she would not be the one to make the effort this time. She had promised herself that she would not make it easy for him.

"Asami, I just want you to know that just because I'm not always there physically, that doesn't mean that I don't care about you. I think of you—I miss you—all the time. You and your mother are the loves of my life."

"Okay," Asami said.

The connection crackled as Hiroshi sighed into the phone. "Okay. Can you give me back to Yasuko, please?"

She did. Yasuko took the phone from her and gave her a kiss on the forehead before leaving the room. Asami settled back against the window and tried not to feel bad for being so short with her father. She couldn't help it; it was like this every time they talked. Hiroshi was not the best conversationalist and Asami resented him for that. She resented him for everything.

"Hey, Asami! _Hey!_ "

Asami did a sharp intake of breath between her teeth. Kuvira was standing in the garden two floors below her window, shining a torch up into her face. Her coarse black hair was tucked into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a baggy sweater over a pair of green pyjama pants and black combat boots.

"You scared the _shit_ out of me, Kuv!" she hissed. "What are you doing here?"

Kuvira shone the torchlight backwards onto herself, illuminating her face in a spooky Halloween pumpkin grimace. "There's no time to explain. Just come with me."

"What? Why?"

"I'm under strict orders not to tell you. You'll just have to trust me."

"I don't trust you at all."

"Well, then you'll have to take a leap of faith." Kuvira put a hand on her hip. "Do I have to come up there and get you, or are you going to come quietly?"

Smiling now, Asami quickly stood up. She was vaguely terrified of Kuvira, whose presence cultivated an odd sort of natural respect. "Do I need to bring anything? A change of clothes?"

"Nah. I like you in the silk."

Asami looked around at the light just outside her door. She could hear her mother talking to Hiroshi in the next room over and the distant warble of Katara's radio downstairs in the kitchen. "I'll be down in a sec," she whispered to Kuvira, who nodded and immediately melted into the darkness. Asami waited until she saw the light under her door go out, before running to her bed and shoving her pillows underneath the blankets, forming a shape that she hoped looked somewhat human, if her mother were to check on her. Then she grabbed her sneakers from underneath the bed and tip-toed out of the room.

*****

"May I ask where you're taking me?" 

"If I told ya, then I'd have to kill ya," Kuvira said. She had met Asami at the mouth of the driveway in a beat-up old Sedan. After asking her consent, Kuvira had then blindfolded her and guided her into the passenger seat of the car. Asami had no idea where they were going and still could not believe she had let Kuvira convince her into this.

"Do you even have your driver's licence, Kuvira?"

"Of course I do. Can't show you it, 'cause you're blindfolded and I'm driving, but I do."

"How convenient."

"Hey, you came with me of your own free will. Maybe you should have a look at your life choices, Asami."

"Maybe you should just focus on the road and make sure I don't die. It's not like I would know if we crashed anyway, I can't see anything."

Asami's body lurched forward as Kuvira pulled the car to a stop. "Alright, we're here. Sit still for a minute, my sacrificial lamb."

"Kuvira? Where are you going? Don't leave me!" Too late. Kuvira slammed the car door shut, leaving Asami alone in the dark. A minute ticked by, then two. Asami was on the verge of panic when, at last, a bright light shone through the passenger window. Someone yanked the door open and took her hand, guiding her outside. "Just follow the sound of my voice," said Kuvira. There was an even larger source of light up ahead; Asami heard soft music and laughter. Kuvira led her up a set of steps and opened a door, enveloping her in light and warmth. They walked up three more sets of stairs, turned a corner, went through another door, crossed an outdoor walkway of some kind, and then went through a final door. "Are you ready?" Kuvira asked her.

"For _what_?" Asami spluttered. She knew Kuvira was smirking, enjoying putting her through so much stress.

"Are you afraid? That's good. You should be afraid. _Very_ afraid."

"You're full of shit, Kuv," said another voice, a wonderfully familiar voice. _Korra_. Asami felt a wave of relief wash over her. "Dear God, what have you done to her? She's shaking like a leaf!"

"I didn't do anything!" Asami heard Kuvira say defensively. "She's fine."

Someone yanked the blindfold off her face, and she opened her eyes to see Korra smiling at her. "Welcome back," she said. "Are you okay? Did Kuvira hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine," Asami said. "It's—it's good to see you, Korra."

"You saw me like six hours ago," Korra pointed out. "Aw, did you miss me that much, Asami?"

"I thought Kuvira was going to drive me into the woods and murder me."

" 'Didn't do anything', my ass," Korra said, rounding on Kuvira furiously. "You scared the shit out of her!"

Kuvira grinned at Asami, shark-like. "Only a little."

"You're a fucking sadistic little fuck," Korra said, punching her on the arm. "I can't believe you _blindfolded_ her. That was _not_ part of the plan, Asami, I'm really sorry."

They were standing in what looked like a dormitory. The ceiling was vaulted high and the walls were painted white, and up against one wall there was a television as well as a mini-fridge. The curtains covering the windows were lace, and a mirrored wardrobe took up an entire wall on its own, facing four bunk beds. Opal sat on the bed closest to the doorway, wearing pastel pink pyjamas and large white headphones around her neck.

"Hi, Asami!" she said brightly. "Thanks for coming!"

"Thanks for, uh, inviting me," Asami said. "Are we—are we in your school?"

"Yep," Korra said. "You are currently standing in one of the senior dormitories of Sacred Heart Girls' Academy, ' _Where young women are encouraged to be the best they can be_ '. The poor assholes in senior year last year had to wear varsity jackets with that slogan on them. Thank God we're just getting plain navy hoodies this year."

Asami was intrigued. "So you get to be roommates? That must be—interesting."

"It's mostly chill," said Opal. “When you go to a girls' school, everyone's either a radical feminist or a lesbian by the time they're in ninth grade, so people get along pretty well. We also get free tampons, and it always smells really nice."

It really _did_ smell nice in the dorm, Asami thought. Like freshly baked cookies and perfume and laundry powder. She liked it. She tried to guess which bed belonged to whom: Opal's bed was very Opal, with pink pillows and stuffed toys and framed pictures of her family. The next one over had to be Kuvira's—it was neat and minimal, with a simple black digital alarm clock on the nightstand, and a pair of ballet slippers hanging off the bed post. Korra's, naturally, was utter chaos: textbooks and food wrappers and bowls of half eaten noodles everywhere. She guessed that the one on the end with the One Direction posters taped above it was Jinora's.

"Yeah, I got into way more fights at co-ed schools than I do here," Korra said. "There's literally zero bitchiness at Sacred Heart. When we're upset we just cry and talk about our feelings, legit. My first day here, I walked into the classroom and everyone was just hugging each other."

"This is honestly not what I expected a girls' school to be like at all," said Asami. "I'm actually jealous."

The door behind them opened and Jinora stepped into the room, her hair wrapped in a towel, an oversized Steven Universe T-shirt draped over her small frame. She smiled at Asami by way of greeting and sat down next to Opal. It was then that Asami noticed the unusual bulge in Jinora's huge shirt—a bulge that, oddly enough, was shaped like a bottle.

"It's all about who you know around here, not what you know," said Opal. Jinora lifted up her shirt and dumped the clear glass bottle on the bed. Asami did not need to understand Russian to know at once that it was vodka; she had seen similar bottles tucked away in her father's liquor cabinet at home. "There's a couple of girls in the same year as us who run contraband through the school: makeup, porn, weed, alcohol, you name it, they can get it. As long as you can pay the price, of course."

"And how much did you have to pay for  _that_?" 

"Oh, most of them come from rich families, so they don't need money. A few years ago, someone started up a rumour that Jinora was a witch; they bullied her at first, but then she just kinda owned it, and started doing tarot readings in the courtyard for a small fee. Now they all come to her to get their fortunes told. I don't know why, but girls _love_ that stuff."

"So she tells their fortune or whatever, and they give her free alcohol in return?" Asami was quite impressed. "Nice going, Jinora. Maybe you can tell my fortune one day."

Opal reached underneath her bed and pulled out a stack of shot glasses, which she passed around to everyone. Korra popped the lid off the vodka and began pouring generous amounts into each glass. "Every teenager has to do shots before they reach legal drinking age," she said. "It's practically a right of passage."

 _Like hell it is._ The vodka smelled like gasoline and tasted worse, a comet carving a fiery trail down the back of her throat. Asami gasped, her eyes leaking tears, but by the time she had lowered her glass Korra and the others were already pouring themselves another round. Clearly, they'd all done this before.

"Now the fun starts." Glass in hand, Opal reached under her bed, sliding out a rectangular piece of wood. There were letters written across its polished surface in black spidery writing, followed by a line of numbers from 1-10. The words 'GOODBYE', 'YES', and 'NO' were also written in the top right corner, the top left corner, and bottom middle of the board respectively.

"What's that?" Asami asked, leaning over her shoulder.

"It's a Ouija board," Opal said, holding it up to the light. "They're very popular around here. You can get them from the tourist centre down by the river for like ten bucks."

"What's it for?"

"Summoning spirits, of course."

"Spirits?"

"Yep. This is the spirit vines, the epicentre of all spiritual energy in the whole world, according to all the brochures."

Asami screwed her face up. "You mean like actual ghosts?"

"Sort of. Professor Zei said there were different kinds of spirits."

"Professor Zei was also fired from his job for ethical and moral breaches," Kuvira piped up.  

"He's a genius," Opal said calmly, ignoring her. "Misunderstood, and maybe a little too enthusiastic, but a genius all the same."

"Even Katara told us to stay away from him," Kuvira said to Asami. 

"Oh, come _on._ You know how superstitious Katara is. She said I'd have bad luck for life because the back door of my house is directly opposite the front door."

"That's nothing," said Korra."Have you heard her Ouija story?" They all shook their heads. Korra sat down on the bed and lowered her voice to a stage whisper; Asami thought she was already a little bit tipsy. "She and her brother tried to use a Ouija board when they were kids. They asked it if there was a spirit in the room and didn't get an answer, so her brother was like, 'If anything is in here, you're a coward for not talking'. The next night, her brother woke up because he thought he heard Katara talking in her sleep in the next room. He walked outside to shut her bedroom door, but realised that it was already shut. Then he heard a voice whispering from the bottom of the stairs; just gibberish at first, or maybe the wind. Then louder and clearer: 'Get the boy', it said. He wasn't sure if he was just imagining things, so he stood there for a moment trying to listen, and heard nothing. Then, suddenly, someone screamed 'GET THE BOY', right into his ear. He freaked the fuck out, ran back into his room, and the door _slammed_ shut behind him—by itself."  
  
"You see?" said Kuvira to Opal, who blew air impatiently through her lips.

"Fascinating, but ... there are a multitude of explanations for what Sokka saw. Maybe it  _was_ just the wind. Maybe his mind was _expecting_ to see something just because that's what's supposed to happen when you use a summoning board. Sometimes, expectation is more powerful than the mind itself."   
  
"How does that work?" asked Asami.   
  
Opal opened her mouth to answer, but Kuvira put her hand over it. "Don't even get her started, please," she said. "We'll be here all night if you do."

"If she wants to know, then I'm gonna let her know!" Opal said, biting at Kuvira's fingers until they moved away from her face. "Professor Zei says that the biggest prerequisite for scientific progress is a curiosity about the unknown!"

"Yeah, no censorship allowed, Kuvira," said Korra, holding up her hands. "Unless you're  _scared_ , of course." 

"I'm not scared, but if Katara is. That counts for something, right? Look," Kuvira went on heatedly, "Ouija boards are  _dangerous._ You're opening a door for literally anything to come through and speak to you, and you have no way of telling who or what it is."

"Oh, so you are scared!" Korra brayed laughter. "Big bad Kuvira, afraid of a board game—"

"Watch it, Korra—"

"Hey, Jinora, who do I remind you of?" Korra jumped up, folding her arms to her chest and tucking her elbows outwards, like the wings of a bird. "Need a hint? I'm Kuvira, a big ole chicken. Cluck, cluck."

Kuvira snapped. She lunged at Korra, drawing her fist back, but Korra was anticipating it; gracefully and seamlessly, she dodged Kuvira's punch, wrapped her leg around her ankle, slammed her forearm against her back and forced her down, pressing her face into the carpet.

"YES!" she crowed. "I can't believe you fell for that, Kuv! That's 9-9 now, HA!" She untangled herself from Kuvira and began to dance around the room, bowing to an invisible audience. "And the crowd goes wild—thank you, thank you!"

"You goaded me! That's cheating!" Kuvira flipped her hair out of her face, which had come loose from its bun. "It doesn't count! _Opal_ —"

"Do not involve me in your boneheaded shenanigans," said Opal, rolling her eyes.

"Excuse me," Asami said, raising her hand. "This Ouija board thingy. How do you use it to talk to the spirits?"

"By conducting a seance," Opal replied. "You ask the board a question, and it spells out the answer for you using the pointer. Only I've lost the actual pointer it comes with, so we'll just have to use a shot glass."

"Have people actually seen spirits in the vines before? Like actually seen and touched and spoken to them?"

"Katara has. She doesn't like to talk about it, though, not unless you ask her. And even then she won't tell you the whole story. I think that's why she hates horror movies—she won't let us watch any in the house. She's seen the real thing, and it scared the shit out of her."

"She talks about something called 'Raava' a lot," said Asami. "Like, the other day she stubbed her toe when she walked up the front steps with the laundry. Instead of swearing, she said 'Oh, for Raava's sake!'"

Opal laughed. "For Katara, that's basically like taking the Lord's name in vain. Raava's not really a spirit; more like a goddess, I suppose. The goddess of light and balance. Her acolytes are Tui, the spirit of the ocean, and La, the spirit of the moon. Or is it the other way around?"

"It's the other way around," said Korra. " _Tui_  is the moon spirit, and La is the ocean spirit."

"Whatever. There are those main three, and then there are the spirits on the lower level astral plane, who have all died really violent deaths." Opal put her hands on Asami's knees. "You know that tour group that disappeared around here like twenty years ago or something? A lot of people think they were taken by the spirits."

Asami tried to remember what her mother had told her of the tragedy; the story had terrified her as a kid. "They went missing and left all their stuff behind at the campsite. Their food was still warm when the police found it."

Opal nodded. "Professor Zei is a real freak for conspiracy theories. _He_ told me that the spirit world and the human world get closer to each other on the winter and summer solstices, and that when those tourists disappeared, it was during the summer solstice. But it's not just on the solstice. Weird shit happens in the vines all the time. Mostly at night. Mostly."

"What kind of weird shit?"

"Flashing lights, changes in temperature, voices, visions, electrical equipment malfunctioning." Opal ticked them off with her fingers. "Of course, there are plenty of eye witness accounts, but once you get a proper paranormal expert in, they're never able find anything."

"But Katara, she _really_ believes that they exist, right?" said Asami. 

"Oh, yeah, she believes. Katara's old-school, which means she pays tribute to Raava, the Mother of all Living Things. Because she's the goddess of balance, she's also the protector of these lands. That story is like ... a whole religion and an old-wives' tale rolled into one. I'll just tell you what Katara told me." Opal cleared her throat. "Okay, so imagine the spirit vines hundreds—no, thousands of years ago. Back then, it was just a swamp that spread as far as the eye could see. Then there were the mountains, then there were the plains, which was where tiny communities of peasants and farmers lived. Every town had a temple, and in every temple there was a priest or priestess, reciting verses in some dead language about gods and monsters and the end of the world. In the swamp, it was the White Temple, and her worshipers were women of the woods, mothers and daughters and sisters all. But one day, something changed all that. The White Temple split in two, and one half began hunting the other. The Mother's daughters were rounded up by the Order of the Black Goat, a new religion that had formed from the rib of the first. And so, the witch burnings began."

Her voice grew hushed.

"Of those persecuted for witchcraft by the Order, ninety per cent were women. Most of them were innocent, but a few really were witches, but the Order of the Black Goat believed it was their holy purpose to exterminate them. Anyone who was caught out after midnight in the vines, especially if they were women, was tried for witchcraft and if they were found guilty, they were burnt at the stake by the Red Priests. In doing so they believed they were righting a grave wrong made by Raava—that is, gifting magic to the women of the White Temple in return for years of keeping their faith. That began what we call the Age of Magic. Tui, the moon spirit, made their spells strongest at night, and La, the ocean spirit, guided their magic with the movement of the tides. But that all ended in the Age of Blood and Fire."

"When I was a kid, my mother told me you're more likely to see a witch after midnight, because that's when the line separating this reality from the next fades. She wanted to scare me, I think, so I would go to bed early." Asami smiled a little. "It didn't work. So... how much of this story is actually true?"

"Parts of it probably have been lifted from actual history," Opal admitted. "Like the actual witch hunts in Europe. It was really horrible, what they did to those suspected of witchcraft. Basically the church made it so either way the accused would suffer, whether or not they were guilty. If a woman had any warts or freckles or birthmarks, then that was a sign that she was a vessel for the devil. But if she didn't have any marks, then guilt was proven by sticking needles in her eyes; if the interrogators could find an insensitive spot during the process, then she was a witch. If not, then she was innocent ... albeit blind and in mortal agony. It's hard to source legends like these, Professor Zei says, because they've been passed down each generation verbally ... so fact and fiction get mixed up by the speaker over time, and it becomes hard to distinguish the two." She looked down at the Ouija board. "Who knows, maybe we'll be able to talk to a witch tonight. Wanna have a seance with us, Asami?"

If Asami was sober, she would have said no. She was not, however, sober; the vodka danced in her brain, warming her insides, making her loud and sloppy and stupid. "Sure. It's just a board game, right?"

"Excuse me, it's not a game," Kuvira said. "Ouija boards are serious business. You might _think_ you're contacting your dead grandma, but you have no way of knowing that. It could be a demon pretending to be your dead grandma. Once you invite something in, there's no way to get rid of it."

Opal huffed at her. "Well I paid ten bucks for this, so I'm not backing out now. Korra, are you in?"

Korra rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged, smiling her dopey surfer girl smile. "Yeah, fuck it."

Kuvira folded her arms. "Fine. Y'all can get possessed. I might just watch."

"Fine. You can write down what it says." Opal rummaged around underneath her pillows and handed Kuvira a pen and a sparkly notepad. She pulled her phone from her pocket and unlocked the home screen. "Ooooh, perfect timing. It's officially the Hour of the Wolf, girls. Let's do this."


	5. The Seance

The room darkened as Korra turned off the main light. All five girls sat on the carpet at the foot of Opal's bed in a circle around the Ouija board. As the darkness solidified, tiny twinkling orbs of multi-coloured light flickered on around the room—fairy lights, hanging from the walls like strings of jewels, dying their faces in soft washes of blue, green, and purple. Opal placed her shot glass in the centre of the ouija board, in the blank space between the numbers and letters. Kuvira's face was calculating and wary again, and she seemed to be purposefully angling her body away from the board as if it were a dangerous animal. Jinora's expression remained one of polite interest, but Asami noticed that she had already downed about five shots.

Opal settled down next to Jinora, breathless with excitement. "Oh, I almost forgot!" she whispered suddenly, and next second she was up again, leap-frogging over Kuvira and thrusting her hand among the mountain of stuffed toys on her bed. "Kuvira, can I borrow your lighter?"

"It's in my bag," said Kuvira tersely. "Are you sure you want to do this, Opal?"

"What's the worst that could happen?" There came a loud clicking noise, then flames crackled to life in Opal's hands: she went around the circle, placing the candles in between Asami and Kuvira, Korra and Jinora.

"What are those for?" Korra asked.

"Atmosphere," Opal replied, handing Kuvira's cigarette lighter back to her. "Are we all ready?"

"I didn't know you had a tattoo, Korra," Asami said suddenly. Korra's singlet had shifted slightly when she'd sat down, exposing a small line of text arching from underneath her boxer shorts to her hips.

"Are you checking me out?" Korra's teeth flashed in the dark as she grinned. "Sorry, Asami, you can look, but you can't touch." She yelped as Kuvira swiftly bopped her on the head with a gigantic Eevee plush. Asami giggled.

"Come on, you may as well show it to me properly now that I've seen it," she said. "We all know how much you love to show off."

Korra gave a long, exaggerated sigh. "Well, if you're that eager to see me topless." She pulled up the bottom of her singlet to show Asami the numbers printed across her hip bone. "It's nothing impressive. Just a couple of coordinates."

"Coordinates? Like for a map?"

"Yeah. I've got a lot of them, actually. They represent all the places I've been to in my life."

"That's cool," Asami said. "So where _have_ you been?"

"Oh, everywhere. It kinda comes with the territory of being a foster kid." Korra bit her lip, a momentary crease appearing between her eyebrows, then she smiled again crookedly. "It's a long story."

"I hope you tell it to me sometime."

"Hey!" Opal said, making them both jump. "Less flirting, more concentrating, please. We can't have _any_ external influence while we do this." She gestured to the shot glass sitting on the Ouija board. "Hands on the pointer, all of you."

Jinora, Korra, and Asami all did as they were told, piling their hands over the glass. Korra's fingers were warm and soft around Asami's; in her drunken haze, she found herself trying to memorise all the callouses and little bumps on Korra's hand, tracing them over and over in her mind like she was drawing on paper. _S_ _omeday_ , she found herself thinking, _someday, I'd like to_ _actually_ _draw these hands._

"Now what?" Korra said. "Do we just like ask if there's any ghosts in here?"

"We have to be careful," Opal cautioned. "Like, we can ask, but we can't invite them in like Katara's brother did."

"Alright," Korra said. "Talk dirty to me, Ouija. Are there any spirits in here?"

The four girls paused with their heads tilted over the shot glass, waiting with baited breath. Nothing happened.

Korra tried again. "I call upon the spirits, if there are any listening. Give us a sign."

Almost imperceptibly, Asami felt the glass tremble under her fingers. Then, slowly, it shifted across the board, landing on 'YES'.

"You're moving it, Korra, I can feel you moving it!" Opal squealed.

Korra let go of the glass, frustrated. "It wasn't working. I'm impatient, okay?"

"Nothing's going to happen straight away," Opal said. "You have to let the spiritual energy flow through you. Keep an open mind. That's how you start seeing stuff." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. " _Omm. Omm._ I call upon the spirits. I ask for their otherworldly wisdom to be bestowed upon us. Speak now or forever hold your—"

"That's inviting them in, that's exactly what Katara's brother did!" Kuvira interrupted. "Ask a proper question. Ask them if Kai likes Jinora."

Jinora punched her on the arm.

"Who's Kai?" said Asami.

"Kai goes to our brother school, St. James College," Korra explained. "It's a little bit further up the river, but the football team always go jogging past our window every morning. I swear, those tiny shorts they wear will be the death of me—you can actually see their— _ow_!" She broke off when Jinora swatted at her, then grinned sheepishly. "You can actually see the shape of their dicks swinging around."

"We like to calculate dick size based on the angle and velocity of each swing," Opal added. "For science, you know. _Ow_!" She flinched backwards as Jinora, blushing furiously now, also punched her on the arm. "What? Don't pretend you don't like staring at those shorts too. You're always up earlier than the rest of us trying to catch a glimpse of them—"

"Riddle me this, riddle me that, Ouija," said Korra. "Does Kai wanna have a taste of—"

"No, no, I forbid you," Kuvira interrupted, while Korra dodged more punches. "Jinora's practically still a foetus. I'm not letting her go anywhere _near_ men until she's at least twenty-one."

" _Shut up_!" Opal hissed. The makeshift pointer did nothing for a moment. Then it shot across the board in a blur, spun around, and landed for the second time on 'YES'.

"Get it, girl," said Asami.

"That doesn't count," Opal announced. "You moved it again, Korra. I felt you."

"I did not!"

"She did, I saw her," said Kuvira in a bored voice.

Korra kicked out at her with her foot. "You aren't even playing, Kuvira, so everything you say is irrelevant! Who even invited you?"

"This is my goddamn room, Korra, I didn't need an invite!" Kuvira snarled back, tossing the Eevee doll at her face. Korra aimed another kick and sent the doll spinning into the ceiling.

" _Enough_!" said Opal loudly. "Guys. Come on. Concentrate. You too, Kuvira. You need to be writing all of this down."

"God, I'm much too sober for this," Kuvira said. "Anyone want to do more shots?"

"Me, please," Asami said, holding out her glass. "Hey, Korra, what alcohol do ghosts like to drink? _Boo_ ze."

Korra's eyes widened. "Whoa. Did you just make a joke, Asami?"

"I did. Have you heard of the Mexican ghost named Jose? They call him, 'No Weigh, Jose'."

"Holy fuck," said Korra, a grin spreading slowly across her face. "That is fucking adorable and hilarious. Moreso because I never thought _you_ would be the type to enjoy puns. This is fantastic, oh my God."

"Who doesn't love puns? They're clever, involve wordplay, and don't rely on offensive stereotypes to be funny at all." Asami downed her shot and flipped her hair off her face. "I'm only this witty when I'm drunk, so make the most of it."

"Oh, I will. What do you call a ghost who never takes sides during arguments?"

"What?"

"Super neutral," Korra said, snapping her fingers. " _Ba-dum-tish_."

"I just rolled my eyes at you so hard, they nearly fell out of the back of my head," Asami said. "Knock, knock."

"Oh, knock-knock jokes! Brilliant! Who's there?"

"Boo."

"Boo who?"

"If you're going to cry then I won't tell you."

"Fucking hell," said Kuvira. "Is this what the night's turned into? So much for your seance, Opal."

"Well, nothing's even happening," Korra complained. " _You_ were the one who said that Oujia boards were meant to open up a door to some seriously scurry shit."

"Maybe we're just asking the wrong questions," said Asami. "Hey, spirits, why did the ghost cross the road?"

Korra burst out laughing. 

"Shut up, the glass is moving!" cried out Opal. "Korra, are you doing this?"

"I'm not, I swear I'm not!"

"First letter, A," Opal said, as the shot glass inched around the board. "Second letter, S. Third letter, A –"

"Oh, the plot thickens," Kuvira said sarcastically, holding up the notepad. "It's spelling out 'ASAMI', you guys. This was _obviously_ you, Korra."

"Why are you all ganging up on me? I didn't do anything!"

"Well, it wasn't me moving it," Opal said.

"It wasn't me, either," said Asami.

They all looked at Jinora, who shrugged.

"So why did the ghost cross the road?" Korra said to Asami.

"To get to the other side, of course."

Kuvira massaged her temples with her fingers. "That was bad and you should feel bad, Asami."

"I guess you could say, _hauntingly_ bad, Kuvira?" said Asami, and Korra cackled.

" _Ss_ _h_! Look at the glass!" hissed Opal. The shot glass was moving again underneath their fingertips. "A. S. A. Oh, it's spelling out 'Asami', again. Stop fucking around, Korra!"

"How can I be fucking around, if I'm not even touching it?" Korra retorted, holding up both her hands. Opal's eyes widened in surprise.

"When did you—? Oh my God. So it was either me, Asami, or Jinora subconsciously influencing it—that's quite common, in like 98% of controlled studies on Ouija boards and seances—or we've got someone—or _something—_ in here!"

"The spirits are probably offended by the bad jokes and have it in for you," Kuvira said.

"No, this is good! We're getting a response! Tell another one!" Opal ordered Asami.

"Hey, spirits, it's me, ya girl," said Asami, "What do ghosts serve for dessert?"

They all watched as the shot glass immediately slid across the board, moving so fast Opal barely had time to repeat the letters back to Kuvira: "R! E! M! E! M—'remember'—'my'—"

"I think you have a secret admirer from the spirit world, Asami," said Kuvira. She held up the notepad for them to all read her hasty scribble:

_ASAMI_

_REMEMBER MY NAME_

"Someone—someone must have moved it on purpose," said Asami, with a touch of unease.

"Not us," Opal said quietly. Asami felt her hand jerk forward as the shot glass moved again; she looked up, and saw that Opal looked shocked, almost a little afraid. "Are you getting this, Kuv?"

Asami couldn't see Kuvira in the dark, but she could hear the sound of her pencil ripping frantically across the notepad, scratching away like an invisible cockroach in the walls of an old house. She watched, transfixed, as the trees outside brushed up against the window, fell back, then came forward again, scraping gently across the glass. Those branches really looked like hands in the shifting darkness, pulling on the window latch, beckoning to be let in.The trees danced and the moonlight wavered and the darkness continued to shift and change, somehow becoming deeper—then she realised that it was because the fairy lights had gone out. But she couldn't remember Opal ever turning them off.

( _we've crossed over we've opened the door_ )

Then she noticed Jinora. The younger girl was sitting poker straight on the floor, legs tucked underneath her backside, the candlelight reflected in her wide, unblinking eyes. She was staring directly into the furthest corner of the room, her face contorted into a horrifying rictus of pure, naked fear. Asami turned her head and then she saw it, too.

( _death is a house of many doors_ )

Her chest constricted, growing smaller and smaller, making her feel less and less; it was terror, gripping her with cold, strangling hands. There was something in the room with them.

( _remove thy mask and come inside_ )

The shot glass flew out of Opal's grip entirely and flipped across the board as if it had a mind of its own. Asami tried to pull away, but her fingers were stuck, frozen around the glass, and she watched helplessly as it circled the board, using her and Jinora's hands as anchors. Trying to keep up, Kuvira quickly tore off the top sheet of paper on the notepad, threw it aside, and continued to write the letters down feverishly on the fresh sheet underneath.

"Y-you guys," Asami whispered; her voice came out as a high-pitched squeak, dissolving rapidly into air as her terror threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn't stop shaking.

None of the other girls seemed to hear her. Asami tried again, but it was like the wind had picked up her words and tossed them away, fading into the night. She didn't understand. There was something definitely there with them, oh yes. Not physically—but almost. It was—it was trying to break through. She could see it and she could feel it—she could hear it _breathing._

( _let me show you showyoushowyoushowyoushowyou_ )

It was slowly forming, taking shape like one of her sketches, growing clearer and sharper, as if someone was turning up the resolution. It was drawn to her, just as she was drawn to it. But the edges were still undefined, as if her brain wouldn't—or couldn't comprehend its entire form. Maybe that was a good thing. If she saw it materialise completely, the sheer horror of it would send her mad.

"Asami, are you okay?" Korra—or maybe it was Opal, she could no longer tell; their faces and voices had all melted together, like the distorted caricatures of fun house mirrors. Asami tried to answer, but her tongue felt swollen and heavy in her mouth. She couldn't breathe. There was a low buzzing noise in her ears: the sound of thousands of angry bees, crawling across her arms and legs, worming their way under her skin.

She could see it better now, the thing that had come through the Ouija board. There was a translucent film separating the two of them, a kind of thin, veined egg sac. But it was pushing. It hung from the ceiling like some monstrous vampire bat, its skeletal legs tucked underneath itself, waiting in suspended motion. Waiting for her to

( _come home_ _Asami_ )

"You guys," she choked out. Korra, Opal, and Kuvira all looked at her. The candles illuminated their faces, but everything below their necks was swathed in darkness; it looked like their heads were bobbing in mid-air, completely disembodied. "Do you see that?"

"See what, Asami?" Korra asked her. Asami could not understand; she wanted to take Korra's shoulders, to shake her and scream in her face; how could she _not_ see? It was right _there_ , growing from the wall like a tumour, a gaping black abyss of darkness so complete she couldn't even see to the bottom. She had read about black holes in space, how the gravity in them was so strong that not even light could escape; this was a similar kind of darkness, only that it was _alive._ It yawned open like the endless throat of some ancient, terrible entity, waiting for her to come inside with a dreadful patience.

"It's right there," she said. " _Right there._ You don't see it?"

"Are you messing with us?" Opal asked. "Asami? _Asami_?"

Asami couldn't speak; her fear had taken her voice from her all together. Everything seemed to have slowed down, the volume muted; Opal and the other girls moved and spoke to her in an eerie, dreamlike quality, like a video tape played in reverse. Asami sat at the bottom of the ocean, listening to the sounds above the surface half a world away. The doorway stood ajar just in front of her, and she watched the

( _incy wincy spider_ )

push and push. The outer wall of the egg sac bulged, stretching almost to breaking point; the bees buzzed and buzzed, like furious white noise, in the back of her brain. Its tongue was in her eyes, sliding through her hair, whispering to her. Its heart, its awful dead cold heart, beat in time with her own, pulsing and twitching and growing stronger, louder. It was coming through.

"Korra, please," she said. She was crying now. "Can't you see it? It's—it's in the corner. It's—it's _creeping—_ "

"Asami, there's nothing there," said Korra. She stood up and walked over to the corner where Asami was pointing to, waving her arms around her head. Asami tried to scream for her to come back, tried to take her hand and pull her away from the gathering darkness before it got her, but it was too late. "See?"

She was wrong. So, so wrong. The darkness spread and twitched and throbbed, growing in size and breadth; its legs uncurled from the enormous, bloated carapace that was its body, the joints snapping like kindling as they flexed outwards, digging into the walls of the dormitory. Then it flowed forwards in a black wave, reaching for her with invisible tendrils. There were sharp talons on the ends of those tendrils, she was sure of it. The moonlight shone through the window, lighting a patch of carpet on the floor in a thin, silvery line; as the darkness grew, that line grew smaller and smaller. The girls sat on their island of candles, and across the room, beyond the shrinking protection of the moonlight, in the sea of blackness above Korra's head, something opened one eye.

_Oh my god it's looking it's looking RIGHT AT US—_

"Korra," she said, staggering up. "Korra, get away from there!"

"Asami, go home. You're drunk," said Korra; she was smiling like it was a joke. Asami uttered a little sob. The darkness shuddered, all ten thousand of its red eyes opening and closing slowly, eyes that were the colour of freshly spilled blood. Ten thousand eyes, ten thousand years. Asami could have sworn that she heard a vast ripping noise, coming from deep within the Earth; it was coming through, throwing itself against the walls of its prison with a terrible sense of urgency. 

"The glass!" said Opal. The pointer had finally come to a rest, stopping on the word 'GOODBYE'. "It's stopped moving. Kuvira, did you get the whole thing? What did it say?"

"See for yourself." Kuvira tossed the notepad on top of the ouija board, and Opal held up a candle so that they could all read the final message.

_ASAMI_

_REMEMBER MY NAME_

_HERE COMES A CANDLE TO LIGHT YOU TO BED_

_HERE COMES A CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD_

_GOODBYE_

"G-g-g-get o-out!" said a new voice; Asami whipped her head around and realised it was Jinora speaking, Jinora who was suddenly on her feet, facing the corner, her hands balled into fists. " _G-_ _g_ _et_ _. OUT_!"

Asami shuddered as something – like the shadow of a huge, black wing—passed over her. Adrenaline surged in her veins and her scalp grew cool and abruptly felt too small for her skull; she was cold, cold all over, like someone had doused her with freezing water. Jinora's eyes had rolled back into her sockets, exposing the whites underneath, and her whole body was trembling violently. Then, a second later, three things happened simultaneously: the fairy lights exploded back on with a loud _pop_ , a huge gust of wind caused the window to burst open, blowing the curtains wildly into the air, and the candles guttered out into nothingness. Both Korra and Kuvira swore aloud; Opal squealed in fright, gripping Asami's arm tight enough to leave a bruise.

"Jinora?" breathed Asami. "Jinora—"

She lurched forwards and reached for Jinora's hand. For a split second Jinora resisted her touch, then her shoulders slumped, and she slowly relaxed her fists. Then Asami realised she was bleeding; Jinora had dug her nails into her palms so hard she had drawn blood. A single crimson drop fell onto the carpet as Jinora sagged in Asami's arms, a cold sweat shining on her brow. Both Korra and Kuvira rushed over, lifting her by the arms and legs and placing her onto Opal's bed. Opal tilted Jinora's chin back and put the vodka bottle to her lips. "There you go," she said soothingly. "It's okay. It's okay. Alcohol cures everything."

"All G, Jinora?" asked Korra.

Jinora swallowed, coughed, punched her chest with her fist, then smiled at them all. Looking immensely relieved, Korra, Opal, and Kuvira all embraced her. The fairy lights danced and spun like fireflies, lighting every nook and cranny in the room; the corner behind Korra was empty. Asami raised her hands and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, but she wasn't quick enough; Korra saw.

"Dude. Holy shit. You're as white as a sheet," she said. "Are you okay?"

"I thought—I thought I saw something," said Asami. "It—it _spoke_ to me, and I thought—I thought—" She shuddered again. "Kuvira was right. Ouija boards are _freaky_."

"I told you so," Kuvira said, putting her hands on her hips.

"What did the spirit say to you?" Opal asked Asami eagerly.

" _Opal_ ," said Korra. "She's scared shitless, come on—"

"No, please, I want to know!" Opal protested. "I've spent my whole life reading all about this stuff, I've always wanted to see a ghost. What did it say to you, Asami?"

Asami hesitated. "It said—it said that it was going—it was going to eat us up."

Jinora made a small whimpering noise; Kuvira put an arm around her shoulders. Korra, looking jumpy, glanced quickly at the corner of the room, then back at Asami. Opal, on the other hand, was only disappointed.

"Oh," she said. "Is that all? Well, that's original." She picked up the notepad and read through the message again. " 'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head'. Surprisingly eloquent for a spirit."

"It's a nursery rhyme," said Asami, then she clapped a hand to her mouth. The words had just come from her on instinct, and yet she knew they were true; some deep, hidden part of her told her that, although she had never heard of it before in her life.

Opal's eyebrows bunched together. "Do you know what it means? Maybe we should ask the spirits more questions, try to find out why—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Kuvira said angrily. "Jinora nearly had a fucking epileptic seizure, Opal. Enough already. This is fucked up. Let's just drink and watch dumb movies like _normal_ girls do, alright?"

Opal blinked as if she'd slapped her. Then something seemed to dawn on her face. "Alright. Sorry, Jinora," she said sincerely. "You're right, Kuv. I thought it would be a bit of fun, but you're right, it's fucked up. Are you sure you're okay, Asami?"

"Yeah," said Asami. "As long as I don't touch another Ouija board again, I'm good."

"I'm really sorry, you guys," Opal said. She picked up the Ouija board, folded it closed, and shoved it back underneath her bed. "There. That better?"

Asami nodded. "So, what _do_ ghosts like to serve for dessert?" Korra said to her, as she snapped the window shut.

"Guess."

" _Boo_ berry pie?"

"Close. Ice _scream_."

"Nice. What do you call a haunted chicken?"

"Hmm." Asami shrugged. "Nope. You got me. What?"

"A poultry-geist," said Korra, and they both cracked up.

"I swear to God, these puns are going to kill me," groaned Kuvira. "And when they do, I'm going to come back and haunt the shit out of all you a-holes, like for real."

It was the stupidest thing, but being with Korra and laughing with her actually made Asami start to feel better. Jinora passed her the vodka bottle and she took a hearty swig from it, feeling the alcohol surge straight into her eyeballs. Almost immediately, the trembling in her hands and knees stilled.

"Hey, Asami. How does Kuvira surf the Internet?" said Korra.

Asami frowned at her. "That doesn't sound like a ghost pun."

"It's not, but it's seriously my favourite joke. Go on. Humour me."

"I don't know Korra, how does Kuvira surf the Internet?"

"She _brow_ ses." Korra's grin could only be described as shit eating. "Geddit? Because of her eyebrows?"

Kuvira lobbed a car-sized Yoshi doll at her, which she ducked; it hit Asami in the nose. Asami immediately stood up on the bed and threw the doll back at Kuvira, bouncing it off her chest and into Opal's nose. A second later Opal was on her feet, too, and then all of them were laughing and screaming, the mattress shaking as they jumped up and down and sent a barrage of pillows and blankets and stuffed toys flying at each other back and forth across the room. Lingering in the background of it all, Asami couldn't shake the sinking feeling that they were being watched. It was an itch she couldn't quite scratch, an ugly, metallic aftertaste on the back of her tongue. Whatever had come through the door had now shrunk back, fleeing from the light and laughter and warmth, but it still watched them, the same way a reptile watched its prey malevolently from underneath the shade of a rock. The vodka and Korra's hand around hers was hot and comforting and already so wonderfully familiar, but she felt cold. Cold to her very bones.


	6. Sunflowers

Asami was drunk. She was very, very, _very_ drunk.

She had no idea what time it was. The last couple of hours had been a blur after the tenth round of shots. She remembered building a fort out of Opal's stuffed toys and pillows in the middle of the room; the girls had stripped all four of the beds clean and used the sheets, blankets, and pillows to build the foundations of the fort, adding turrets and even a moat, while Opal's Eevee plush sat at the very top, a makeshift flag. The floor around this majestic architectural feat was littered with empty bottles and discarded pizza boxes. Jinora, Opal, and Kuvira had gone somewhere—they had told Asami their intended destination, but she must have been too drunk to process what they had said, because she could no longer remember. All she knew was that she and Korra had been left behind to defend the pillow fort from invaders—what that involved so far was stealing Opal's wine from the fridge and drinking it all to oblivion. Asami lay on the floor, watching the soft glow of the fairy lights blur slowly into the corners of her vision like melting candlewax. Korra stood above her, moving the beer and wine bottles around so they outlined the length of Asami's body, starting from the top of her head and going all the way around her legs and her feet and her hands and back to the other side of her head again. Asami could hear music playing, a sad, lilting tune, and Korra singing softly along to it, her voice all husky and slurred with booze.

"Korra. _Korra._ Who sings this?"

"Who sings this?" Korra repeated, looking at her incredulously. "Fleetwood Mac. You don't know them?"

Asami shook her head.

"Girl, you haven't lived," said Korra drunkenly. "Stevie Nicks is my hero. First time I heard her voice, I was on the back of a freight train. There were no clouds that night, and everything was all white underneath the full moon, forests and dirt roads slipping away. The sound of the wheels on the tracks was so loud it actually physically hurt, so I put my headphones on and pressed play. Next thing I know, this dreamy angel voice was speaking into my ear. She's a witch, you know."

Asami opened her eyes. "She's a—what, sorry?"

"A witch. Everyone knows that. It's in her lyrics. All that stuff about black robes trailing and sisters of the moon. She's one of Raava's white witches. Listen."

Korra must have turned the volume up, because the music suddenly swelled and engulfed Asami like a wave. A woman was singing, and her voice was so sad, so sad and dreamy and romantic; Asami had never heard anything like it. She watched as Korra began to dance, her hands twisting figure eights around her face, her eyes closed in a blissful daze. Sweat gleamed on her collarbones and her short hair stuck to her neck and face as she tossed her head back and swayed her hips with a strange, liquid grace. Asami realised that this was Korra like no one had ever seen her, Korra at her softest and most intimate: " _Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions … I keep my visions to myself … it's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams, and have you any dreams you'd like to sell? Dreams of loneliness, like a heartbeat drives you mad … in the stillness of remembering what you had ... and what you lost..._ "

Finally Korra opened her eyes. The fairy lights bounced off her face and she looked sleepy and ethereal and half a girl, but also half the woman she would become someday, and Asami thought she looked beautiful, even though Korra probably didn't even realise it. "It's like … I dunno, man. Nothing in this whole wide wicked world makes sense until I listen to her lyrics. Then I do and it's like, wow. This is the truth. This song is my soul. And then I don't feel so alone."

The sad, dreamy song faded away, changed. A guitar riff started to play, deep and powerful. Korra's eyes lit up with blue fire, and before Asami knew what was happening, she was gripping her hand fiercely and pulling her to her feet. "Oh, now _this_ is my jam! Even if you don't know Fleetwood Mac, you've probably heard this guitar riff before. It's like one of the most famous riffs of all time. Beyonce even sampled it."

"I don't—I don't—Korra, what are you doing?" Asami's eyes widened. Korra had pulled her singlet up over her face and tossed it into the corner of the room. The tops of her breasts shone with tiny beads of sweat, cupped in a lacy black bra.

"This is the kind of song you dance topless to, trust me," said Korra. "Come on, 'Sami, take it off. You have to. There's no other way to listen to this song."

"Okay, okay. Don't look, alright?" Asami turned around and undid the sash of her nightgown. The dorm suddenly seemed a lot hotter; she pulled the lace gown past her waist and stepped out of it, kicking it off her ankle as she did so. Then she turned around, just in time to see Korra glance quickly away. "I told you not to look!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Korra said with mock innocence. Then her face split into a wicked grin, and she began to dance again. There was an aggression in the way she moved this time, a powerful sensuality that was almost sexual; her hands roved over the plains of her belly and her breasts and her hips bucked like they were grinding against an invisible pole. Asami didn't even know the human body could move like that. It was passionate and it was wild and it was _free_ , the way Korra danced. Like she didn't give a damn if other people were watching and what they thought of her. "This is her anthem," Korra said, as she spun around and dipped low, leaning back and thrusting her head upwards at the ceiling. "Listen to her. She sounds like she's pouring everything into it, like it's her whole life. This is Stevie's song—this is the song of the white witch. Women who are free and love no one but their own and have the whole world at their fingertips. _Just like the white winged dove sings a song sounds like she's singin, ooh, baby, ooh, said ooh…_ come on, Asami, dance with me! Doesn't it just make you feel so alive?"

"I'm not dancing," Asami said, hugging her arms over her chest. She felt vulnerable, exposed in just her underwear. "I don't dance."

"Oh yes you do," Korra said. She straightened up and held out her hand to Asami again. "Everybody dances. It's a natural human instinct."

"Well, not for me. I got two left feet."

"No such thing. You just dance how you feel. It's not about skill. It's about being who you _are_."

"I don't think you want to see the real me," Asami mumbled, pulling her fingers away. She sat back down in front of the fort, in the middle of the circle of bottles, and watched Korra twirl and spin around the room. It was more of a hypnotism than a dance, she thought. "How do you do it, Korra?"

"Do what?"

"That. What you're doing right now. How do you—" she hesitated, blushing a little. "How do you just not _care_?"

"I'll tell you a story." Korra pointed at Asami dramatically, her eyes all dark and stormy. She picked up a bottle of wine from the floor and drank from it, the cords in her neck standing out starkly in the half-light. Then she wiped her mouth and handed the bottle to Asami, who cradled it protectively to her chest. "Once upon a time, the man machine tried to take a bite out of me. I thought I was going to die, bleeding out with my guts on the floor. But I picked up the pieces of myself, and sewed them back together with needle and thread. Women are torn down by the man machine everyday, and they still get back up and keep on walking. We have to, otherwise the man machine will eat us up forever. The man machine teaches us that our bodies are not ours, but it is, Asami, it _is._ It's yours to shake and tremble and thrash about. Once you realise that, then you are free. Free to claim it, own it, do what you want, however you want."

She held out her hand to Asami again. Asami hesitated for a second time, then took it. Korra's flesh was burning, warming up Asami's fingers, and her pulse racing next to her own. She didn't know what she was doing, or how she managed to do it—but she could feel her body moving, could feel the music thrumming in her veins and in her limbs like a hummingbird's wing, and it must have been a kind of magic, because Korra's hands were in her hair and her hands were in Korra's hair, moving down Korra's neck, all over Korra's bare back and her boxer shorts, and she was vaguely aware of Korra's breasts against her own, of her hands on Asami's hips and her mouth on her ear, but those were just background distractions to the music, the music which had cast its own spell on Asami and somehow made her body move, made her shiver and rage, rage, rage.

"There you go," Korra whispered harshly; Asami could feel her teeth on her neck, scraping lightly over her skin. "Yeeeesss, you're doing it, you're finally feeling it. See how it makes all the bad stuff go away and your head feels all better afterwards? That's why I do it. That's why I dance."

She turned and drifted out of Asami's arms, dancing by herself in the centre of the room. Asami watched her and wished she could see the world through Korra's eyes: Korra, who danced topless without a care in the world and burned bright, like a lone shining star, who loved everything so much and who was friends with everybody because she thought people were interesting and beautiful, even people like her (oh God she was so drunk).

"I'm going to be sick," she murmured. She heard Korra say something, but exactly what she said, Asami didn't catch it. All the alcohol she drank rushed straight to her head, turning her vision grey; her knees buckled, and then she was falling, falling, and if Korra hadn't been there to catch her she would have landed face first and knocked out a few teeth. Tightening her grip around Asami's shoulders, Korra slipped a hand underneath her legs and then picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all. 

"I think someone partied a little too hard," she said, as she carried Asami over to the pillow fort. "You need some pizza. And water. Hang on."

Asami moaned out loud as Korra lowered her onto the pile of soft toys and covered her legs with a blanket. Her stomach was boiling ominously; it took every inch of inner strength she had not to vomit right then and there. Korra passed her a huge water bottle and she drank it all greedily, then settled back among the blankets and screwed her eyes shut just to stop the room from spinning. 

"I need you to distract me so I don't puke and compromise the integrity of the pillow fort," she slurred. "Tell me another story."

"What kind of story?" Korra lay next to her, munching on cold pizza. She held out a slice to Asami, who took it with weak, shaking fingers.

"Any kind of story. Tell me how you were on the back of a freight train in the middle of the night."

"It's a secret."

“No, come on. Tell me. I probably won't even remember any of it in the morning."

"I was hitchhiking," said Korra. "This was before I met Katara. I ran away from the foster family I was travelling with, didn't have money for a bus or anything. Back then, life was just one big adventure. I would run away from home and hop on the back of a random train just for the hell of it. It was like a game, trying to see how long I could last before the cops caught up with me, or my foster family finally got sick of me and threw me out altogether."

She held up her left arm and turned it so Asami could see the coordinates printed across her bicep. "Jakarta, the city I ended up in when I train hopped for the first time. I always need a tattoo of every place I've been to, just so I remember."

"Wow." Asami could see more lines of numbers stretching across the surface of Korra's abdominal muscles, her breast bone, the small of her back, and her collarbones; she pulled herself upright so she could get a better look. "So all these numbers … they each represent a different place?"

"Yeah. Or a different person." Korra stuck out her ring finger. "So like, _these_ ones, for example, are where I went on my first date. It was with this stupid hot guy who was kind of an asshole, but I'm a sucker for guys like that, so I said yes. He took me to the Statue of Liberty, because I'd never been. How lame is that?"

"Aww. It's not lame. It's cute."

Korra shook her head. "Nah, it's pretty lame. I thought I loved him."

"Did you?"

"For a while, yeah. And I still kinda do. But we argued a lot. Then we'd have angry hate sex. It was very intense. We never really talked to each other, like you and me are doing right now. We weren't even really that nice to each other. It was a classic example of young, dumb love."

"You're still young and dumb, Korra."

Korra chuckled. "Right. I feel a lot older sometimes. Not necessarily smarter, though."

"Okay, so the Statue of Liberty, you loved him. When did you get the tattoo?"

"After we broke up. I got drunk and did it myself. Thought I was going to die from the pain of it."

Asami gasped. "You tattooed _yourself_? Korra, how old were you?"

"I dunno. Not much younger than Jinora, I think. I do all my tattoos myself."

"You're kidding!"

"I'm not, 'Sami, I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die. The first time's the worse, like no shit. But the second time, and the third, the pain kinda gets diluted. Now I tattoo myself just for the fun of it, you know?"

"No, I don't know. Who tattoos themselves just for fun?"

Korra shrugged. "I guess I'm a masochist. It goes back to the man machine. My body, my choice. If you're gonna judge me for that, then go ahead. I don't belong to you."

"I'm not judging. I'm just trying to understand how you don't have Hepatitis."

"You ever played that game, stick n'poke? As long as you disinfect the needle with rubbing alcohol, it's totally fine." Her smile faded a little. "I've done a lot of stuff in my life that probably should have killed me, but didn't."

Asami tapped her fingernail on another line of coordinates curling around the small of Korra's back. "Okay, what about these ones then?"

Korra twisted around. "Oh. Haha. That one's Berlin. I was staying in this youth hostel, it had to be the dirtiest, most grungiest place on Earth. A lot of kids in Berlin prefer to stay in hotels, because they're cheaper than a proper apartment. I had these weird roommates, two German girls, and they were always doing shit like coming into the room at 4am and using my toothbrush and leaving their books on my bed, they couldn't speak any English so it was always really awkward. Anyway, one day I just decided to confront them about it. Turned out they were super lovely, they apologised straight away in bad English, and then they took me out with them, and it was probably one of the best nights of my life. Berlin, man—Berlin is my favourite city in the world. Those numbers right there—they're the coordinates of the gay club those German girls took me to."

"How did you end up in Berlin?"

Korra shook her head. "Trust me, Asami, you wouldn't believe me even if I told you."

"Try me."

"I will someday. Just not now. You think I'm weird enough already."

"I don't think you're weird," Asami said. "You're the most interesting person I've ever met. I could listen to you talk about your life all night." She traced her fingers from the tattoo on Korra's bicep to the one on her back, connecting the two as if they really were separate dot points on a map. From South-East Asia to New York to Berlin and maybe a thousand other places in between, then to here, Republic City and the Silver House … it sounded like something from a movie. "How many foster families have you been with?"

Korra paused. "Before I met Katara, it must have been about one every two months. I can be—difficult. There are other things, too, things you wouldn't understand."

"You're right. I don't understand. I can't possibly imagine it." Asami wondered what it was like to be shunted from family to family like an unwanted piece of baggage; Hiroshi wasn't the greatest father, but at least he provided her with a roof over her head, fed her and clothed her ... she slid her hand onto the coordinates tattooed just above the gentle curve of Korra's breast, close to her heart. "And this one?"

"That's the place where I was born," Korra said. "Alaska. My family were native Inuit. I was an only child. My mother's name was Senna. My father was Tonraq. They both died, though, when I was young. That's when I started tattooing myself. So I could remember where I've come from, where I've been, and where I need to go next." She exhaled. "When I was younger, it all seemed so romantic, moving from place to place. But it was hard. I was really lonely most of the time. When you're on the road, you have to cook all your food yourself, find shelter and bedding, and if it's winter then you have to find warmth, too, otherwise the cold will kill you. It was really, really fucking hard. But I had to do it, you know? It's like—I dunno, it's like an addiction. I can't stay in one place too long, otherwise I get all antsy."

"That makes it sound like you're going to leave," said Asami softly. "Korra.  _Are_ you going to leave?"

"No. I dunno. I'm staying for Katara, because she wants me to go to school and get a proper education. If I had one wish, though … you don't know how lucky you are, Asami. At least you have somewhere you belong."

"You do belong, Korra. You belong _here_ ," she pointed out. "With Opal and Jinora and Kuvira and Katara. And with me, too."

Korra opened her mouth to say something; her eyes had that soft, faraway look again. At that very moment, Opal burst into the room, clinging onto Kuvira's elbow and giggling hysterically. "I did it!" Opal crowed. "I set them up!" Then she stopped. "Oh. Hold up, I think we're interrupting them, Kuvira." Asami realised she was laying side by side next to Korra, and that her fingers were still resting on the top of Korra's _b_ _reast_ , and that they were both still in their underwear. She quickly pulled her hand away as though she had been burned. "Oh, no, by all means, please continue, Asami. Don't let us spoil your moment."

"Moment's over," Korra said shortly. She got to her feet and pulled her top back on. "What happened? I thought you weren't going to give Jinora your blessing until she turned twenty-one, Kuvira."

Kuvira's eyes narrowed to slits. "Nice try. Don't change the subject. Asami was touching your tiddy. Fill in the blanks, please."

"I was only touching the _top_ of her—breast, actually," Asami said. "She was just showing me her tattoos."

" _Really_?" Kuvira said, raising an eyebrow at Opal.

"Yes, really," Korra said impatiently. "So what did you guys do exactly, shove Jinora through Kai's window and lock them inside? I need to hear all the gruesome details!"

"It's not that interesting, really," said Kuvira. She gave them a smile that showed all her teeth. "Kai's terrified of me now, though."

" _Terrified_ 's an understatement. I thought he was going to shit himself," said Opal. "They're not going to do anything ever now thanks to you. You've put the fear of God and STDs into them."

"Eh, they weren't gonna do anything anyway," Korra said. "Jinora can't even talk unless she's _really_ wasted, and Kai's a total gentleman."

"Whatever happens, happens, it's out of our control now. I told her to call if she got into any trouble." Opal sat down on the bed and checked her phone.

"Korra, come for a run with me," Kuvira said suddenly.

"What, like right now? But you just got back!"

"I know. Still. It's tradition."

"How can you guys want to go for a run now?" demanded Asami. "It's like two o'clock in the morning!"

"They always go for a run when they've had something to drink," said Opal. "Don't try to understand it, Asami, they're sick."

"Korra, come on," wheedled Kuvira. "I'll race you. Last one to do fifty laps around the grounds has to give the other one piggy back rides to and from class for a week."

Korra let out a bark of laughter. " _Only_ fifty laps? That's child's play, Kuv. You're on." She nodded at Asami and Opal. "You guys feel like some fresh air?"

"Fifty laps around the grounds does sound _very_ tempting," Opal said, in a sweetly sarcastic voice. "Sorry, Korra, I'm going to have to pass. Someone's going to have to make sure that Asami doesn't pass out in her own vomit. Are you alright, 'Sami?"

"Yep," said Asami groggily, jerking awake.

"We'll be back soon. Don't die, 'Sami," Korra said, and she stepped back outside the dormitory with Kuvira. Opal waited until the door closed behind them before crawling into the pillow fort next to Asami, filling the place that Korra had just vacated.

"So," she said. "You and Korra, huh? What's going on with you two?"

*

Korra and Kuvira did not return from their run until hours later, just when the birds were starting to sing. Dimly, in the back of Asami's mind, she heard them come in, but she wasn't sure if it was just another alcohol soaked dream until she actually felt Korra slip inside the pillow fort next to her and Opal. She opened her eyes and reached out with her hand, just to make sure that Korra was really there. Her fingers touched a face, then a nose, then Korra put her hand over Asami's, gently lacing them together. Her hands were always so warm, and her hair smelt like wet grass and woodsmoke. Asami hesitated a moment before wrapping her arms around Korra's waist. She had never spooned anyone before, but Korra didn't offer any protest or criticism, so she supposed she was doing the right thing.

"How was your run?" she whispered.

"I lost the bet by half a second!" Korra hissed back. " _Half a second!_ So I'm going to be dragging Kuvira's lard ass around for a week now. Fuck my life."

"That well and truly sucks, Korra. Is there anything I can do?"

"Nah," Korra said, snuggling against her. "This is a pretty great consolation prize. You make a good big spoon."

They lay there together in silence, listening to Opal's quiet snores.

"Thanks," said Asami. "I mean. As long as you're okay with it. Me spooning you."

"Of course it's okay. As long as _you're_ okay. You don't want to sleep in Jinora's bed?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Then there's no problem, is there?"

"No, I—I guess not."

Korra suddenly pulled away out of her arms and turned around. "Hey, Asami?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you mean what you said, about me belonging here with Katara and the girls? With you?"

"Yeah, I meant it."

Korra smiled at her. "Good. Thanks. I needed to hear that."

She raised a hand and rested it on Asami's cheek. Asami did not react to her touch at once. Then, uncertainly, she mimicked Korra's movements, stroking Korra's jaw to her ear, then running her hand through a strand of her hair. Korra moved her hand down, down, tracing the curve of Asami's neck, along one shoulder blade, and across the surface of her forearm. She was so close, Asami could almost taste her. She shifted her legs slightly and continued running her hands through Korra's hair. She couldn't stop thinking about what Korra had told her before—she had been drunk, but she still remembered it perfectly. How many steps through the world had Korra walked, how many faces had she seen, how many languages did she speak? Her story was inked onto her whole body, but it still wasn't enough; Asami wanted to hear it all, wanted to breathe and drink all of Korra in. With her other hand, she drew invisible lines between the places where she knew Korra had tattoos; these lines became zig-zags and loops, and then they became the ghosts of kanji she had once known but could no longer remember, ghosts that were dancing on the tip of her tongue but refused to crystallise into proper, solid forms. She felt Korra's breath tickle her ear as she giggled.

"What are you drawing?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "It means nothing."

"You know, the first thing I noticed about you when we met was your eyes," said Korra quietly. "They've got sunflowers in them."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sunflower eyes. Your eyes are green, but then there's yellow around your pupils that looks like sunflowers. They make me feel funny if I stare at them for too long."

"Don't stare, then. It's bad manners."

"Nah, I like staring at you. It's a good kind of funny. Like when you're on an airplane and it takes off and everything in your stomach drops."

Asami laughed sleepily. "When you're drunk, Korra, you say the weirdest things."

"I'm not drunk, though."

"Yes you are." Asami's fingers found Korra's hand, her warm, gentle hand, and she studied the texture of it, every knuckle, every crease in her palm, feeling her way along from the top of her thumb to her little finger; their hands met in the air and intertwined like swans, fingers curling into flesh and becoming one. Asami was lost, drowning in the sea of Korra's eyes, lost in a dark blue dream. There was an odd, hollow ache in the depths of her belly; Korra moved her hand to her lips, running the pad of her thumb across the surface, and Asami's mouth opened slightly in response to her touch. Korra's finger traced around the bridge of her nose, brushed the very tips of her eyelashes, arced over her chin, and teased at her ears. Eventually, Asami fell asleep like that; Korra's finger on her lips being the last thing she felt before she drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fleetwood Mac songs mentioned: 'Dreams', 'Sisters of the Moon', and 'Edge of Seventeen'. Stevie Nicks is always a #mood honestly


	7. Dreamwalker

Asami was dreaming.

It was one of those dreams where you were fully aware that it wasn't real, but your body was paralysed, and you could only lie there in your bed, helpless, as your thoughts capered and danced in the dark of your deepest subconscious. What was the phrase? _Sleep like the dead._ That was what this particular dream was like. Even if someone tried to wake her, she wouldn't.

She stood outside the Silver House in her flimsy nightgown. The lawn and the forest around her was quiet. No lights glimmered in the windows; it was all dark. She couldn't even hear Katara's radio. All dark—for some reason, that scared her. If there was no one home in the Silver House, then that was bad. Very bad indeed. _There must always be a sister in the Silver House_. Who had said that? Asami did not know. It was a strange group of words—like Korra's way of talking about the colour of her eyes, calling them sunflowers. She didn't know who the sister was or why it was so important that they be in the Silver House. Those words had just resurfaced in her mind like a sunken ship out of the depths of an ocean, an echo of a memory of a time before. What time? She could not remember.

Her fists clenched.

( _remember my name_ )

It was the Witching Hour, the true Witching Hour. The time when the spirit world and the human world were the closest to one another, when all the ghosties and ghoulies and wee spirit beasties were able to break through. The moon sailed free from the clouds, flooding the lawn in white, bright light, making everything stand out in a kind of surreal, three-dimensional clarity. The windows of the Silver House looked like the empty black sockets of a skull. Asami's fists clenched and unclenched restlessly; her bare feet whispered over the slightly damp grass, sinking into the dirt, anxious, trembling. She wanted to run; every muscle, every instinct in her body was telling her to run, but she couldn't. Cold, creeping fear had taken hold of her again, wrapping around her ankle and rooting her to the spot.

Something was in the house.

Not her mother or Katara. It was not even a person; it was a _something._ And it was hungry. Its eyes were on the back of her neck, crawling over her skin like scuttling bugs. It was hungry and it was ancient and it was evil. The awareness she had felt when they had first arrived at the house had almost fully awakened, reacting to her presence like two unstable chemicals reacting to one another in close proximity. She could feel invisible fingers reaching for her from where she stood, could feel its ghastly black presence oozing from every crack and floorboard, pooling down the steps, coming for her.

The heavy screen door swung open, and Asami saw a hand, like a pale spider, curl around the door frame. She began to scream, then as the figure emerged from the house entirely, the scream stopped in her throat, unraveled like a piece of thread caught on a nail in the wind.

Vincent Kuan crawled down the porch steps, his pale hand grasping for her, reaching.

He was wearing a button-up shirt over a pair of baggy jeans, the very same clothes he had died in. His jaw hung open, grinning like a dead carp; his face was swollen, purple, hideously shiny, and his eyes gleamed silver in the moonlight. He took a shuffling, halting step towards her; his arms and legs rippled and wavered like water, the way the surface of a pond rippled when you threw a stone in it. A single bee wormed its way out of his gaping lips—then Asami realised that the weird rippling, shivering movement on his body was actually the movement of thousands of live bees, buzzing over every inch of his skin.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed," he said, and as he spoke more bees fell out of his mouth, tumbling onto his collar. He took another staggering step towards her. "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

His voice was as quiet as the wind, yet somehow it bounced off the trees, magnifying and echoing back to her as if there were a thousand dead Vincents speaking to her.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

The paralysis freezing up her joints suddenly unlocked; Asami turned and ran.

The path curved in a lazy S-shape through the woods. Her legs brushed against the fronds of plants and her long hair kept getting caught on low hanging tree branches. She had no idea where she was going but it didn't matter, she just had to get away, as far away as possible. A gasp of pain escaped her mouth as her foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground; she fell over, tearing a stinging hole in her knee, but still she forced herself up, up, staggering onward through the vines. Blood trickled down her leg, but she didn't stop; she was hyper aware of Vincent behind her, of his pale hand clutching at the hem of her nightgown and only just missing. His figure was only a moving shadow in the trees, a shadow that was steadily lengthening, growing in size, looming over her. If Asami stopped running, then that shadow would eat her up.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

She heard ugly sucking noises as her toes suddenly sank into mud; she had reached the swamp, the beginning and the end of everything. Shadows of shadows of endless shadows; the words on her tongue again, teasing her, the feeling that she had been here before, that pervasive, undeniable feeling of deja vu. There was power here, hanging over her head like the heavy electrical feeling in the air just before lightning struck. But it was wrong, all wrong. Something foul was growing; something rotten. The vines were huge. They lay draped across the forest floor like sheets of snake skin and wrapped around the trees in heavy, moss-like coils, completely hiding the sky. Asami couldn't even see the stars; the darkness was like the darkness at the bottom of a well, a total absence of light.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

Asami couldn't make out the exact shape—it _looked_ like a deer, loping across the path in front of her on four long legs; its eyes glowed an eerie green in the dark as it looked back at her ... almost like it  _knew_ her. She would have reached out a hand to touch it, but then it was gone, bounding away. She looked up saw the flashing lights Opal had mentioned, wheeling in between the border of the trees like tiny firecrackers, fading out for a split second then flaring up in one bright, hot explosion so strong it was still visible on the back of her eyelids when she closed them.

( _don't look at the lights Asami_ )

( _don't look at the lights you'll go blind_ )

She twisted around. The darkness was all around her, hugging her with cold, bony arms. Somehow, Vincent's footsteps seemed louder, heavier, coming at her from everywhere at once. She could hear crackling undergrowth and breaking branches. Whatever was moving out there, it was big. And it wore Vincent's face. But it wasn't really him, because Vincent Kuan was dead; even in this dream world, that was an irreversible fact, as constant and unchangeable and inescapable as gravity.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

There was a monstrous screaming, grinding noise of wood splitting apart behind her; in the dark, the something-that-looked-like-Vincent-but-wasn't-really pulled a tree straight from the earth by the roots. Asami backed away from that sound as quickly as her feet could move her; she slipped in the mud and fell with a splash in the shallows of the swamp. The water was slimy and sickly warm and caressed her skin like the hands of a lover, making her shudder all over. Just metres away, another tree fell to the ground with a splintering crash. It was gaining on her.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

 _You've got to scream yourself awake,_ Asami thought wildly as she continued to flail in the swamp, pushing herself away from the thing bludgeoning its way through the trees; rank, oily water slapped against her cheeks and she retched as some of it seeped into her mouth—she could _taste_ it, the cloying, decaying evil that had infested the river and the vines and the whole forest like putrefaction. _You've got to scream yourself awake_ _doesn't matter if you_ _scare_ _Korra_ _Opal Kuvira_ _got to scream yourself awake screamscreamscreamscreamyourselfawakeawakeawake—_

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

More lights burst in between the trees, flickering on and off like the fairy lights in the girls' dorm, beckoning to her. In a mad desperation she waded deeper into the water, following the call of the lights like a moth drawn to a flame. More trees fell to the ground behind her, the sound of thunder. Of doom.

And then the trees seemed to open up before her, revealing the clearing. Enormous white stones cloaked with vines stood in a circle, ghostly, silent sentinels. A memory of Opal's voice whispered in her ear: _it was the White Temple, and her worshipers were women of the woods, mothers and daughters and sisters all ..._ _._ But these stones were so tall she couldn't even see the tops of them—they just went up, up, up, and kept on going. There was nothing natural about them and yet she could not understand how any human being could have possibly moved them there. The electric charged feeling in the air was still present, but it was weaker now. The light was dying. The stones lay in the clearing like bits of broken teeth. The door had been open for too long. It was never meant to be opened. She had to shut it—

All at once, Asami felt a hand close around her ankle.

"A chopper to chop off your head," whispered Vincent, and he rose out of the swamp grinning, bees squirming in the back of his eyes and mouth, wet hair plastered to his face, streaks of mud on his cheeks like war paint. As he straightened up, Asami felt her terror morph into a single, bright spear of certainty in her mind: that she wasn't actually dreaming, that the corpse of Vincent Kuan had really chased her into the spirit vines.

Somewhere in the darkness above Vincent's head, the lights continued to soar like shooting stars. No—not stars. They were eyes. Crimson eyes, glittering like tiny jewels on an immense, unthought-of body. It swelled above the treeline, blotting out the moon completely; darkness fell across the stones like a curtain across a stage. Never in her life had she felt so infinitesimal, so meaningless; all she could see when she looked in that void were red eyes, like billions and billions of boiling, hateful crimson suns.

And with that, the dream whirled away and she jerked awake.

*

Asami lay in the pillow fort, clutching the blankets to her chest and breathing hard. From the corner of her eye she could see sunlight filtering softly through the curtains, spilling across the carpet, and could hear the birds making their usual racket outside. The red eyes she had seen were changing, focusing, turning blue, green, purple, and then pink. Opal's fairy lights—they must have forgotten to turn them off before going to bed. Her body was coated in a cold sweat; she lay utterly still, waiting for her heart to slow and the dream—that awful, frightening dream—to fade.

Korra still lay next to her, breathing softly with one brown arm slumped around Asami's waist. On Asami's other side was Opal, her short hair sticking up all on side of her head, her mouth gaping open in a wide, drooling snore. The school was blissfully quiet and peaceful, lost in the spell of sleep.  _All a dream,_  she told herself.No matter how real, or how terrifying, it had just been a dream. She drew in a deep breath and let it out. The room stank of alcohol and stale pizza and a little bit of vomit but she didn't mind; it was real and it was true and that was good enough for her. Her head hurt like it had been cleaved in two—this was her first ever hangover, and she relished in the sensation, the way her arms ached and her stomach roiled; it was an added texture of reality, the _true_ reality, that was slowly coming back to her by degrees, soaking up the cold horrors of her nightmare, leading her back into the light.  _Just a stupid dream._

Sleeping in between Korra and Opal was like sleeping in between two space heaters, something that drunk Asami had not foreseen. She tried to pull away, but Korra's arm wouldn't budge; she gave a small sleepy moan of protest as Asami tried to roll over and hugged her to her chest in a death grip. Asami reached up and tickled her fingers lightly across Korra's exposed belly; Korra mumbled in her sleep and cringed away from her touch, allowing Asami to scoot out of the fort and escape.

Her legs were wet.

Asami looked down and it was like someone had pulled a rug from underneath her feet; the world seemed to tip on its axis and she swayed, dust motes dancing around her eyes. She scrunched up her face and blinked a few times, just to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. She wasn't. Her legs were covered in mud.

Her hand leaped down to her knee. She was bleeding, bleeding in the exact same spot she had fallen when she'd tripped on the tree root … in the dream. Her toes were nearly black with muck and dirt and crushed saplings. Asami's heart rushed straight to her mouth. Quickly, she moved over to the mirrored wardrobe that was set into the wall opposite the fort.

_Oh my God no—_

Her hair hung down her shoulders in dripping clumps. Her face was covered in tiny, bleeding scratches. Several river weeds splattered her chest and the tops of her thighs. Asami's eyes dropped to the floor, and the fear roared through her chest like a bullet, hysterical, breathless fear that pushed her, teetering, on a knife's edge towards complete lunacy. The carpet around her feet was scattered with pine needles and muddy footprints. _Her_ footprints. The room wavered precariously, like the bees wavering on Vincent's arms and legs—the filth on the carpet, the cut on her leg, the river water slowly pooling at her feet, oh God what if _Vincent_ had been real, too? Her teeth came down on her tongue with a small click, but Asami didn't even feel the pain; her mind was spiraling, spiraling like a kite in a storm, grappling for coherent thought.

( _no don't look_ )

She didn't want to look, but she had to; something was pulling her, compelling her to raise her eyes. The dormitory door stood wide open. Her footprints led out into the hallway, like the fabled trail of breadcrumbs from a fairytale: one set going out, and the other coming back in, stopping right where she stood.


	8. Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A witch is born out of the true hungers of her time."  
> \- Ray Bradbury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: self harm mention, suicide ideation

_"The person you are calling is unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep and it will be converted to text message."_

"Hiiiiiiiii Asami. Again," said Korra. "Um, I was just wondering if you got my other messages. You kind of vanished this morning and I—well, the girls and me—we were just wondering if you were okay. Call me back when you can. Bye." She pressed the red 'End' button with her thumb and gave a little sigh.

"No go?" asked Opal.

"Nada. Zilch. Fucking fuck all."

"Maybe her phone's out of battery."

"Or maybe she just hates me," said Korra, throwing her phone onto the grass with a huff. She wiggled her bare toes, marveling at the way the sun flashed off the charm bracelet she wore around her ankle. Nina had given her that bracelet, twenty-two years ago in Berlin. That had been another life, another Korra. Nina had been good at crafts and making things, and she had plaited the bracelet out of red and purple threads with little beads and safety pins attached to them. Korra remembered being jealous of Nina's nimble, delicate fingers, the graceful way they danced in and out of the braid, pulling it all together seamlessly. Kuvira passed her a lit cigarette, which she rolled across the flat of her palm before sticking into her mouth. The smoke drifted up into the sky and disappeared into the leaves of the banyan tree above their heads. She had never really been the delicate or graceful type. _Wicked._

"You look like microwaved shit," Kuvira said. Her cigarette drooped out of the corner of her mouth as she arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow in Korra's direction. Korra didn't understand how Kuvira still managed to get her makeup looking so flawless the morning after a trashy night of drinking. Her winged eyeliner, as usual, was sharp enough to kill a man.

"Because I'm worried about her, Kuv. Aren't you?"

"Well, yeah. But the way you're acting, it's like Asami snuck out on you after sex."

"We didn't—I just—it's not like that." Korra placed two fingers on the centre of her forehead, pinching the skin there. Her eyeballs squirmed uncomfortably in their sockets. The pain came in waves – first nothing, then _whoosh_ , all at once, lapping at the insides of her skull. _Wicked._

"I'm sure Asami's fine," Opal said. She sat cross-legged next to Kuvira, holding her lit cigarette daintily between thumb and forefinger, a copy of Sophocles' _Antigone_ open in her lap. They had a practice exam on the pre-feminist ethics of the Greek tragedy after lunch, but all of them were still far too hungover to do anything much apart from smoke cigarettes behind the bike shed and sunbake with their shoes off, their skirts thrust up to their thighs. "She probably had to get back to the Silver House before her mom found out she'd been drinking with us. Yasuko seems really overprotective of her."

Out of all the books they'd studied in Lit,  _Antigone_ was Korra's favourite so far. The titular character was headstrong, intelligent, and a total shit to her uncle Creon—exactly Korra's kind of girl. She had always liked wild, difficult women. Joan of Arc, Courtney Love, Antigone, Frida Kahlo, Cersei Lannister. The Hindu goddess Kali, who had four arms and danced on the corpses of her enemies with a khadga in one hand and a severed human head in the other. Real or fiction, these women were her sisters. _Wicked._

"I just wish she'd said something before bailing on us, is all." Korra knew she was pouting like a child, but she couldn't help it. Was there anything in the world worse than waking up alone? She hadn't thought so, but she'd been wrong. The fact that Asami hadn't replied to any of her urgent calls or text messages—and Korra had been calling her every hour since they'd woken up in the morning to find Asami gone—had now taken first prize for being The Official Worst.

"Maybe she got taken by the Ouija ghost," Kuvira suggested.

Korra thumped her on the arm. "Don't even fucking _joke_ about that."

Kuvira had that mocking sneer on her face, the one that she particularly loathed. "Ah, she shows signs of life! I have to say, you're no fun when you're being all mopey and lovesick. Asami's turned you soft."

"Speaking as the only straight girl present," sighed Opal, "just looking into Asami's green eyes turns _me_ soft."

"If you guys are trying to cheer me up, I want you to know that you're both shit at it," Korra snapped, turning on her side. She could feel Kuvira playfully dropping blades of grass onto her hair and resisted the urge to lash out again. It was bad when she got like this, all jittery and highly strung. There was a ragged, bleeding bit of skin on the inside of her mouth, the place she always bit into when she was stressed. Her lower lip was constantly bruised and sore; her nails were chewed down to the quick. Katara had even tried to make her wear special nail polish that tasted bad just so she wouldn't bite them, because chewing your nails wasn't a particularly attractive quality in a young woman, but that didn't stop her. Korra would wake up with the sour taste of that special nail polish on her tongue and blood on her fingertips, as if she'd been biting in her sleep. She'd chew and chew on her skin until she felt the blood flow freely, cutting deep and re opening all the old wounds, because that was the only way she could release all that pent up energy without going completely nuts. The biting was like an exorcism—it made her feel a little bit lighter. _Wicked._

"We're not trying to cheer you up," said Opal. "Good friends cheer each other up— _best_ friends give each other real talk."

"Oh, you want real talk?" Korra sat up straight and faced them both. "If Katara finds out we used an Ouija board, she's going to lose her shit. You can't just pretend like nothing happened—"

"We were all drunk and it was dark!" said Opal. "And Katara's not going to find out, because you're not going to tell her, _are you_ , Korra?"

"What are you gonna do, drop a house on me? Jinora saw something come through."

"And Asami completely freaked out," said Kuvira. "The message—"

"That was just Korra moving the pointer."

"Yeah, but then I took my hands off it, didn't I?" said Korra. "But as soon as Asami spoke to it, something changed. Don't tell me you didn't feel it, Opal, because you did."

"I don't know, Korra. Most of the time when people play with Ouija boards they see stuff because they _want_ to," said Opal. "It's called the ideomotor effect. Even though we all swore that we didn't move the pointer, one of us most definitely did subconsciously. In most cases, the pointer is actually guided by unconscious muscular movements, but people just think there's a spirit in the room with them."

"Asami's not that good an actress. She was out of her mind, nearly crying—"

"Well, Ouija boards can be highly suggestive for some people. They create dissociative states where the players are cut off from their normal cognitive functions. It was Asami's first time drinking, okay? She wasn't thinking clearly."

"Whatever. We should still tell Katara," Korra said stubbornly.

Opal held up her hands. "You want to have your face literally bitten off, then be my guest. Remember how angry she was when she found out you got kicked out of biology because Mr Patel said the length of your skirt was too 'distracting'? I ain't afraid of no ghost, but hell hath no fury like Katara scorned."

"And anyway," said Kuvira, " _you_ showed Asami your tattoos, Korra."

"What's that got to do with anything?!" 

"You never show anyone your tattoos. Not even to pretty girls you like."

"That's because pretty girls never normally care to ask about them."

"Yeah? What did you tell her?" demanded Opal.

Korra folded her arms. "I didn't—you're changing the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject,  _you_ are, so stop it."

"Oh for fuck's sake— _one_ , I only showed her like three, and _two,_ I don't likeAsami. I've only known her for two days."

"You got with Mako after knowing him for like, a week," Kuvira reminded her.

"Yeah, and look how well _that_ turned out." Korra absent-mindedly picked at her elbow with a fingernail. This was another form of self-harm that she indulged in when she was stressed—she would scratch until tiny red welts rose on her elbows, which Katara said was dermatitis, only it went down after a few hours and left her skin smooth and completely blemish free. Korra was a creature of bad habits—she collected them like other girls collected Scout badges. She smoked too much and she drank too often and she was loud and aggressive and too sexual in public; she couldn't pay attention in class unless she found the subject really stimulating, because her mind was a raging, fucked-up category 5 storm with a deeply romantic core. It'd been too much for Mako to handle. _I don't know who you are_ _anymore_ , he had told her just before they broke up. Their relationship had been like an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object—everything had just imploded. 

"Korra. What exactly did you tell Asami?" Opal asked again.

" _Nothing_ ," insisted Korra."I didn't say shit. I just—I just told her about mom and dad and Mako."

Opal wrinkled her nose. "You told her about _Mako_? Girl. You don't mention exes to potential love interests. No wonder Asami's not replying to your texts."

"No—it's not—she's not a _love interest_ , okay?" Korra spluttered. "I like her and I want her to be my friend—she's _pretty_ , sure, and really nice, and she has perfect hair, but—"

"But you don't want to fuck her, right?" Kuvira teased. "She's only pretty and nice and perfect, but you don't want to fuck her? Oh, Korra. You're hopeless."

Kuvira was right about that; Kuvira, damn her, was always right about everything. Korra was hopeless, impulsive, stupid, and immature when it came to love. She was a paradox wrapped up in a labyrinth of contradictions—how was it that she always felt like running away, yet she was needy as fuck and hated being left alone? Humanity had been searching for the key to eternal life since the dawn of time, but Korra knew from first-hand experience that eternity, in fact, was a total drag. There was the crushing, all-consuming, black loneliness that turned her brain inside out and made her skin crawl—that was eternity, the same day over and over, lather, rinse, and repeat. So she sought the company of others like a heroin addict seeking her next fix; as for love, well. Love was a dance she wasn't sure she even knew the steps to, but once she tried, she was able to perform it with complete abandon, twirling and spinning with her eyes closed and that slight half-smile on her face that hid her biggest secret, and every time she opened them there was a different partner dancing with her, but the steps never changed. She could play the part of the dumb jock, the class clown, the surly smoking schoolgirl, the bubblegum smacking femme fatale with the ease of an actor slipping into different roles, and people  _thought_ they knew her, thought that they led the dance, but it was all part of her elaborate magic act; blink, and you missed it. The truth was, they didn't know her at all. And they never would. _Wicked.  
_

"We haven't even sussed if Asami is into girls yet," said Opal. "We're going to have to do some serious recon after Jinora gets back from Kai's."

"She's probably not," said Korra. "But you know, who cares? I'd be happy just being her friend. Whatever."

There were two sides to every story. Korra had known all along that she loved guys, loved their bodies and their dicks and their jawlines and loved running her fingers through their hair in the hazy quiet after fucking, but her attraction to girls was something that had snuck up behind her and stuck its hands over her eyes when she wasn't looking nor expecting it. Girls were fascinating. Korra liked to watch them, especially in the cities where they all had that same pouty fuck-you attitude and wore sinfully short skirts in summer and their lips were painted the same cherry red colour, the colour that told you they were better than you and they knew it. The girls she had met in Kruezberg in the 90s, they had been tanned and freckled and leggy like the girls in Republic City, only they'd also been disheveled and wild too, like twin feral alley cats. Nina and Naomi had been children of the punk rock scene that had blossomed in Berlin after the second world war; Nina liked to wear her eyeliner black and greasy underneath her lower lashes, Naomi smoked like a chimney and could outdrink Korra under the table, easy peasy. Nina gave Korra her leather jacket when she found her passed out cold on the curb, and when she discovered that Korra could speak a little bit of German she let her sit on her bed while she wove the anklet. Of course she had fallen in love; Korra always fell in love with girls more easily than guys. She was hopeless like that.  _Wicked._

"Don't you reckon Asami's hiding something, though?" she said. "Like, on the day we met her, Jinora tried to reach out to her, and she freaked out and left. There's something weirdabout her, I'm telling you."

"We've already gone over this. Katara would have told us," said Opal. "She said we were the last."

"Maybe there's another reason. There's heaps of stuff Katara doesn't tell us about, just to protect us. Maybe she's protecting Asami, too."

"No," said Kuvira. "No, Asami's a sweetheart, and I can see why you like her—but deep down, she's just the same as the rest of them. If she found out what you were, she'd treat you like a freak. She'd videotape you and make you go viral on the Internet—"

"You don't even knowher, Kuv," said Korra angrily.

"Oh, and you do? Just because you've shown her your tattoos and let her spoon you?" Kuvira snapped back. Korra looked into her eyes and knew that, like a lot of things that came out of Kuvira's mouth, she didn't really mean it; she just said those things because she was trying to protect her, because Katara couldn't do it all the time, and because Korra could be reckless. "You fall way too quick and hard for people, Korra. I thought you would've learned your damn lesson by now."

Korra smiled at that. She never learned. And besides, why would she need to cut herself, when she could just fall in love instead? Another contradiction that she couldn't explain—she couldn't die, and yet she was addicted to trying anyway.

"It's always better to just have low expectations, that way you're never disappointed," continued Kuvira. "I mean, it's all human behaviour, isn't it? People _hate_ what they don't understand, they're afraid of the things don't fit into the little boxes inside their heads. You really think Asami's any different?"

"I'm prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt," Korra said evenly. "I think she's cool. Our girl gang could use a fifth member."

"Ideomotor effect. I think you're just seeing things you wantto see."

"I think you just don't want to see what's obviously right in front of you."

Kuvira brandished her cigarette at her. "Hey, I protect my coven. It's us against the world. They _burned_ you, Korra. Your own flesh and blood. Did you forget?"

That wasn't true. Korra had lost count, sure, of exactly how many years, but that was the whole point of her tattoos. The coordinates of her parents' graves were etched just above her heart. Her mother's name was Senna and her father's was Tonraq. They had lived up north, somewhere in an icy tundra, a bitterly cold wasteland where there was nothing but snow stretching on as far as the eye could see. There had been a war. Her father's last words to her: _Run. Now._ He had died with an axe in the back of his head. Korra remembered feeling his blood spray wet and warm onto her face. She hadn't run. She never did what she was told. She'd been a bad child, a wicked child. The man who had killed her father had tried to kill her, too; the axe had shot straight through her left shoulder, through bone and sinew and soft tissue, but Korra had kept coming. She'd kept coming, and closed her small, white teeth around Unalaq's neck. She could still see the bite marks now, like bloody flowers opening up all over her uncle's skin. She had bitten his ear clean off with her sharp little girl teeth. _Wicked._

_Wicked. Wicked._

Korra had spent each and every one of her past lives burrowing into her own flesh, just to see if she would bleed. Tattoos she had done with a real needle, a stick n'poke, or a razor blade, whatever she could get her hands on. The first time she'd cut herself, she had watched, mesmerised, as the edge of the blade had sunk into the brown, taut skin along her belly, then the blood had slipped out, dripping down her legs and soaking her underwear—but she hadn't felt a thing. Before she knew it, the skin had healed itself. Korra had cut again and again, just to see the blood come and then ebb away almost instantly, as her skin stitched itself back together. _Wicked._ That word had been her very first scar; her uncle had carved it into the inside of her thigh, and after that he and his followers had burnt her at the stake. Korra remembered the flames licking at her face and clothes and her hair, but of course she had not died. She had risen, risen from the ashes of her parents' bodies and her ancestral home naked as the day she was born, covered in soot but alive. Later, she had taken Unalaq's knife to her thigh and recarved those words into her skin using magic. Magic cut deeper than knives and left a mark that was still visible every time she was reincarnated. Magic hurt, too. Even now, lives and lives and countless Korras later, those secret places still ached, the pain serving as a reminder of where she had come from, and what she had lost.

"No," she said. "No, I don't forget."

"They're still burning women," Kuvira said. "In India, Papua New Guinea, Africa. _You_ may have changed, Korra, but the world sure hasn't."

A hundred lives before this one, she had been a solitary wandering witch, drifting aimlessly through time and space. Foster families would kick her out after less than a month, and she would take a train to some other godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere. She had seen world wars, crucifixions, genocides, mass disasters, resurrections, and countless witch burnings: East Lothian, Scotland, 1590; Wurzburg, Germany, 1626; Torsaker, Sweden, 1675; Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. Katara said that the executions of those accused of witchcraft had been the only gendercide ever in the history of the human race. And it _was_ still happening. That was the way of the world, the way of the man machine. Every time she came back, she would see that face, the face belonging to the one her sisters called Raava. She would see Her face and hear Her voice singing to her, the way her mother had sung to her when she was in the cradle, only _Her_ voice was a dark, thick honey in her veins. The voice of a cruel, apathetic god. Many times, she had asked that voice _why_ it had to be like this, had prayed and asked until her throat burned and her tongue felt like sandpaper in her mouth, but received only deafening silence in return.

"The world has changed," she said. "It's gotten smaller."

Magic was thicker than blood and water. Her tattoos ached from time to time, the weight of all her past lives screaming so loud she felt like she would fall apart from the combined pressure of their murmurings: the feel of Mako's hands around her waist while she cooked dinner (she had learned just for him), the harsh wind on her face as she trainhopped with Nina for the first time (Nina had shown her how to catch a train without buying a ticket, and after she left Korra had spent the next two decades travelling through Europe, Indonesia, and America on trains, getting lost in countryside raves and sleeping in under bridges), Katara's scissors slicing through her long, matted hair and her firm hand on Korra's shoulder, stopping her from running (she remembered thinking that Katara was strangely strong for a woman with burns on thirty per cent of her body). She cut and she bit and she chewed in order to distract herself from the family of ghosts that had taken up residence inside her ribcage. It was like feeling the presence of limbs that had been amputated, memories that were long gone but still _ached_ somehow, reminding her that it was real, that it wasn't just the same dream she couldn't seem to wake up from—a dream about being a person.

_Wicked._

Across the school grounds, the bell rang, signalling the end of their lunch break.

"Time to honour your bet, Korra," said Kuvira, squashing out her cigarette on the grass. She stood up and held her hand out to Korra, making kissing noises with her mouth, like she was a dog. "Come on, girl. Come on."

Korra groaned. "You can't be serious!"

"You lost the bet, remember? Last one to do fifty laps around the grounds has to carry the other to and from each class for a week."

"I know, I know, fuck! I was hoping you'd forget! Can't I just—can't I just write your essays for a week or something instead?"

"Sorry. No returns, no exchanges, no take backsies, them's the rules. You reap what you sow in this life, _and_ the next."

"Fine!" Korra shouted, jumping up. "Fine! Fuck you, Kuvira, and fuck you too, Opal, for letting her get away with this." She bent her knees and waved her hand at Kuvira expectantly. "Come on, princess. Your carriage awaits."

"I'm going to enjoy this," grinned Kuvira, as she wrapped her arms around Korra's neck and climbed into her back. Korra straightened up, grunting as Kuvira hooked her legs into her side. There was a flash as Opal, breathless with laughter, took a photo of them both with her phone.

"Hey!" snapped Korra. "What the fuck, Opal?"

"Sorry, Facebook just has to see this," said Opal. "Aw, you guys make _such_ a cute couple."

"I hate you both."

"Just close your eyes and pretend I'm Asami," whispered Kuvira, squeezing her breast.

"You disgust me," muttered Korra. The three of them set off back to the classroom at a steady pace, the sunlight slanting off the backs of their heads. Opal held _Antigone_ open in her hand, reading while she walked; Korra's head was still filled with sunflowers, sunflowers which soon darkened to Mako's warm amber, then changed to Nina with her smoky grungy eyes and her hair stuck to the back of her neck in the heat as she laced the chain around Korra's ankle and kissed her cheek.

"You know this is not going to end well," Kuvira murmured into her ear. "Korra. Girls like Asami are just too pretty for their own good. You know what I mean?"

"Aw, Kuv, you _do_ care," Korra panted sarcastically.

"Of course I care, fuckface. I don't want you getting your heart broken."

"No one breaks my heart," Korra said. "Fuckface."

"Dildo," retorted Kuvira.

"Douchecanoe."

"Asshat."

"Fuckhatdildofacedoucheasscanoe," said Korra. "Boom! Super insult combo."

Nobody broke her heart. Every time she died, she simply respawned whole and unharmed; the tattoos on her body told the story of her past lives' journey across the Earth, from the icy tundra five hundred and fifty years ago to now, where Katara, Kuvira, Opal, and Jinora were the closest she had to a family. Come closer, children, and see for yourselves: gouge out her eyes if you like, pull her hair, feed her pills, watch her drink herself to death and back again, break open her sternum and wonder at her still squirming organs, it didn't matter. Korra would still dance, like a toy ballerina trapped inside a music box. She would dance and she would fuck and she would spit in your face, crawl her way back to life tooth and nail no matter how many times you stabbed her through the fucking heart. She was a stubborn little witch bitch like that. The word on her inner thigh pulsed like it had a heart of its own, reminding her that after all she'd been through, she was still alive: wicked, wicked, wicked.


	9. The Mute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I will wade out, till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers  
> I will take the sun in my mouth, and leap into the ripe air  
> Alive: with closed eyes, to dash against darkness  
> In the sleeping curves of my body, I shall enter fingers of smooth mastery with chasteness of sea-girls  
> Will I complete the mystery of my flesh?  
> I will rise after a thousand years, lipping flowers  
> And set my teeth in the silver of the moon.  
> \- e.e. cummings

While Korra pawed through the wreckage of her pasts, Asami was discovering what it was like to lose your mind, one piece at a time.

( _did_ )

( _didn't_ )

She sat in the middle of Katara's garden underneath the shade of a pomegranate tree. Her mother's sun hat perched on her black hair, slightly askew. Dirt stained her knees and the bottoms of her high tops. The lap of her dress was scattered with cue cards. The black spiky lines, drawn with a Sharpie on the backs of old business cards her mother had found in Katara's study, undulating and blurring her vision. Yasuko had spent all morning drawing up basic kanji on the cards for her to memorise; she would hold up a card and Asami would trace the shape of each kanji in mid-air with her finger. She had since retreated back inside for lunch, but Asami had stayed in the garden; she couldn't bear to be in the house with the memory of her

(premonition)

dream still fresh in her mind. Not that she'd made much leeway by herself; every time she looked at those symbols dancing before her eyes, she felt like screaming.

( _I did go into the spirit vines_ )

( _no I didn't I was with Korra)_

She had not slept a wink in 24 hours. After walking back from the girls' dorm in nothing but her nightgown and her sneakers pulled over her muddy feet, she'd washed off all the muck and the river weeds with the hose in Katara's garden, before staggering onto the porch and collapsing into her comfy old rocking chair. And there she had stayed. She did not dare to go upstairs to sleep, because if she did she knew she would see Vincent again, she would see the pile of white stones in the spirit vines, and if that happened then her mind would simply snap, like a piece of brittle chalk.

( _I did go into the spirit vines_ )

( _no I didn't_ )

( _did_ )

( _didn't_ )

Asami felt like there was a fissure widening slowly in her brain, cleaving her whole body and soul in two; on one side of this fissure, the reality that she'd built a pillow fort with the girls and danced to Stevie Nicks drunk and then fallen asleep with Korra touching her—and on the other side, the reality that she'd actually been chased through the spirit vines by the ghost of Vincent Kuan. These two truths could not coexist with each other; she simply could _not_ have been in the vines if she'd stayed with Korra. It wasn't possible. For one thing, how did she leave the dorm without waking the others up? And how did Vincent get into the house without Katara or Yasuko knowing he was there? Yet she knew it had all been real, and it was slowly tearing her up inside—those two realities were fighting for dominance in her mind like girls fighting over a doll. One of them gripped the doll by the legs, and the other held onto the doll's head firmly, both of them pulling and tugging and screaming at each other, while the chasm between them grew wider and deeper and more unstable.

( _DID_ )

( _DIDN'T_ )

And on and on it went. Eventually her mind would snap, and then she would be gone, the precipice crumbling under her feet into that chasm of no return—but she wouldn't have to worry or be afraid of anything any more.

"Come on," she said out loud. She picked up a flash card from the pile in her lap and held it in front of her gaunt, exhausted eyes: _haru_ , the kanji for spring. She placed it back down and looked up into the leaves of the pomegranate tree, trying to picture the shape of the letters in her mind. "Come on, 'Sami. You can do it. Think. _Think._ "

( _remember my name_ )

Her finger trembled in mid-air, then dropped onto her lap, on top of the cue cards. She rapidly stood up, gathering all the cards and then scattering them across the garden, watching with grim satisfaction as the breeze picked them up and blew them upwards into the trees. Bile rose in her throat, hovered precariously for one moment, then slunk away. She shouldn't have drunk so much last night. She could still feel Korra's finger on her lips; the places where she had touched her seemed to burn and ache and weep, as if she had been branded by Korra's warm, gentle fingers. She was the kindest person Asami had ever met, but Asami would never see her again. She was a sick, diseased thing; she had killed someone. She was sick and she was afraid. Korra could not know the truth. Asami shouldn't have fallen asleep in her arms and she shouldn't have come to the Silver House. The place was more than bad for her; it was poison.

The sound of the garden gate swinging open broke her out of her reverie. Asami whirled around, her heart machine-gunning in her chest. Jinora stood in the entrance to the garden, leaning over the handlebars of Opal's glittery silver bike.

"Jesus!" she gasped. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Jinora was dressed immaculately in the school uniform of Sacred Heart Girls' Academy, with not a single wrinkle or crease in her shirt, her hair pulled back with a purple ribbon. Asami wondered if she'd skipped class to come down here. And if she had, then why was she alone?

Jinora stepped off her bike and lowered it onto the grass, staring silently at Asami with those big brown eyes. Then she reached for one of the flash cards, which had landed near the gate.

"It's kanji," Asami said. She didn't know why she felt the need to tell Jinora about this, but it was strangely relaxing, being able to talk without interruption. "I used to be able to write and speak Japanese when I was a kid. But I forgot it all. So I'm trying to teach myself again."

Jinora continued to stare. She turned the card over in her hands, then took a step towards Asami, holding it up so she could see what her mother had written on it: two vertical lines that curved into one another, then flared outwards, winged by two smaller vertical strokes. The word flew off the tip of Asami's tongue at once: "Fire," she said. "Translation:  _h_ _i._ "

Jinora palmed the card and waited. Asami hesitated, then traced an invisible shape in the air: one line down, flaring out to the left; the other leaning right. Then two smaller vertical strokes, enclosing the first lines. "Have you spoken to Korra?" 

Jinora shook her head. She bent and held up another card. "Oh, that one's easy," Asami murmured. " _Kuruma._ Car. My dad has that symbol on every Satomobile he ever makes."

Jinora hid the card behind her back and looked at her expectantly.

" _Ichi_ , _ni_ , _san_ , _shi_ ," Asami sang to herself, drawing wildly in the air with her finger. " _Go_ , _roku_ , _shichi_. It has seven strokes, right? There."

Jinora broke into quiet applause, her lips twitching into a rare and rather beautiful smile.

Without thinking, Asami said, "It was you, wasn't it? You spoke to me in my head on the day we first met. You told me not to be afraid. Or did you? I don't know. Am I going crazy?"

A light rain was starting to fall; a summer storm was coming. The temperature in the vines was still hot and soupy, but Asami could see thunderheads racing across the horizon, gathering above the river. Rain drops slid down the leaves of the pomegranate tree and pattered onto her bare shoulders. "Say something," she whispered. "Please."

Jinora's black leather shoes barely made a sound as she walked across the grass. She knelt next to Asami at the base of the pomegranate tree and reached out with her hand. Her finger brushed across the scratches on her face; Jinora sat back on her heels and looked at her right in the eye.

Asami gasped out loud as invisible hands rifled through her head, picking up thoughts and then discarding them as quickly as lightning; she saw random memories, thoughts, emotions flash before her eyes before they were thrown aside, most of them involving various humiliations at school. At last this mad carousel came to a stop: she saw Vincent standing in the centre of the spirit vines, like he had been in her dream, surrounded by the pile of white stones. They shone brilliantly underneath the moonlight like grave markers sticking up from the earth; Asami saw the door, swinging open with a crack of thunder, and her whole body trembled as she saw the flare of golden light blazing beyond, like all the power of the sun was contained behind that door … a terror like she had never known seized her heart, and she gripped Jinora's hand, shoving it away from her face.

"N – _no_!"

All at once, that awful feeling of being possessed, of having someone in her head, disappeared. Jinora suddenly looked very apologetic. That was when a small voice spoke in Asami's mind, so clearly there was no way she could have imagined it; it was the same voice that had spoken in her head the first day she had arrived at the Silver House, and it was the same voice that issued from Jinora's mouth in the dorm the night before, when she'd told the Ouija spirit to leave:

_I'm sorry._

"How did you do that?" Asami breathed.

Jinora looked at her warily. Asami leaned forwards and touched her hand.

"You're telepathic."

Jinora shrugged her shoulders and turned her head away.

"It's okay," said Asami, smiling at her. She tightened her grip on Jinora's hands and gave a shaky laugh. Warm relief was cascaded over her, flooding her extremities. _I_ _t's okay_ , she thought. _We are the same. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay._

 _You are the same,_ Jinora said; not out loud, but in Asami's head.

"Yes," said Asami.

 _I know. That's why you're here. The boy_ _with the knife—V_ _incent?_

"He was going to kill me," she whispered. "I didn't know what to do—I was so scared—my parents think I'm sick."

 _You're not_ _sick_ _, Asami. You're magic._

"Magic," she repeated, tasting the word on her lips. How had Korra put it, in her unique Korra way? _Women who had the world at their fingertips._

Jinora reached out to her again; Asami felt her hands of thought steal into her consciousness, like water flowing through a tap. Her hands curled into fists, but she forced herself to relax and let Jinora inside. More memories began to flash before her eyes, only they weren't her own: she saw Jinora, looking exactly as she did now, standing on a stage of some kind, in front of a whole hall of girls, all wearing the Sacred Heart uniform. She saw Jinora try to speak, saw her mouth tremble and the words stutter and die as they tried to crawl off her tongue, saw one girl in the front row of the hall suddenly cover her hand with her mouth to hide a laugh, but it was too late—the laughter caught on like a flame bursting from a match, and then everyone in the hall was laughing, as Jinora stuttered and her face burned bright red and tears fell from her eyes. Before she knew it, Asami was crying, too.

 _I was part of the debate team at school,_ said Jinora. _I didn't want to enter, but my mom—she thought it would help me_ _be_ _more confident_ _if I competed_ _. I got up to talk—but everyone was staring at me—I've got a really bad stutter—_

"I'm sorry," said Asami, wiping her eyes. "I shouldn't have asked—that was rude—"

She gasped again as Jinora's hold on her mind strengthened; the memories came at her with greater force, flashing past in vivid colours and sensations, racking her whole body with shock waves: she saw the girl in the front row who'd laughed first fall face first onto the floor as if she'd been punched in the face, blood welling from one ear. The memory withdrew, and Jinora stared at Asami, her expression twisted into a kind of frantic, heartbreaking sorrow.

_I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted them to stop laughing at me._

"I know. I know."

_The bad dreams you keep having. I have them, too._

She shuddered away instinctively. "You saw the circle of stones?"

Jinora nodded, her face pale. _There is a doorway. But it's not meant to be opened. It has to stay shut, otherwise—otherwise things can come in from the other side. Those tourists that disappeared years ago—they didn't get lost in the forest. They were eaten up. Something came through from the spirit world, and it swallowed them whole. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?_ _  
_

Yes, Asami knew what she was talking about. The gigantic bloated spider, clinging to the top of the totem pole, staring down at her with ten thousand of its white, blind eyes. No, not white—red. Red with witch's blood. It had visited her in her dreams, and once she'd drawn it in her sketchbook without realising what she was drawing; it was the monster under her bed she had always been afraid of, the tall man who waited for her in the dark alleyway at night, the cancer in the lung. It had watched her and it had whispered to her as it spun its enormous grey web in her veins and her dreams and in the wind; haunting, haunted.

 _It's coming for us,_ Jinora said. _It's growing. I can feel it. It's like millions of bodies all writhing together, and they're all screaming._

( _feed me_ )

( _witch_ )

"I—you need to leave," she stammered. "I'm sorry—I can't—I can't—"

_Yes, you can. You're a good person, Asami._

Asami shook her head over and over. "No. No, I'm—"

_You're strong. You just have to remember._

"But I _can't_!" she said, her voice rising to a shriek. "Please, just leave me alone!"

_It doesn't have to be like this. I know you're lonely. I know you need someone to want you. I know Korra wants you. It's okay to want her back. Be brave._

( _did didn't did_ )

"But I'm always afraid," she whispered. She was crying again.

Jinora cupped her hands to her mouth and whispered something. Then she raised her head and opened her hands like a flower, blowing a kiss in her direction; something gently brushed over Asami's cheek, as soft and light as a moth's wing. Immediately, a warm cloak settled over her shoulders, filling her with a hazy, sleepy peacefulness. She looked up at the sky and watched the rain fall onto her face, sparkling on the leaves of the trees and grass like tiny shards of glitter. She had never felt so calm, or warm—it was like being in Korra's arms all over again. "What—what was that?" 

 _I cast a spell for dreamless sleep. Y_ _ou won't have any_ _more nightmares now._

"I can't sleep," she murmured. "I can't sleep—if I sleep, I'll see Vincent again—I _can't_ , Jinora—"

_You must. You need rest, Asami. It's okay. The spell will protect you._

Jinora's face was blurring before her eyes, fading slowly into blackness; the cloak of drowsiness weighed down on her shoulders, sinking her body further into the earth, and Asami slowly felt herself give in to her exhaustion. Her cheek lay against the grass at the roots of the pomegranate tree, one palm resting underneath her curls of black hair, the other on her hip. Jinora was at the end of a very long and dark tunnel now, a tunnel that was growing darker and darker; she was falling, falling down that black tunnel, and at last, she closed her eyes.

*****

Asami woke up, so very warm, so very sleepy, that she didn't open her eyes at first, wanting to nod off again. Through the thin gap of her eyelashes, she could see the sun peeking feebly through the stormy clouds, casting the garden in dappled greens and golds. It was Katara's pride and joy, the garden. There were beds yellow and magenta roses, great green ferns that stroked her face with their fronds every time she walked past, pretty clusters of orchids that peeked their heads up bravely from the green whenever it rained. The pomegranate tree was Asami's favourite spot; as a child she liked to read books under the shade of its branches, and when the fruit was ripe she would sit on her father's shoulders and help him pluck them from the leaves. Hiroshi had shown her how to crack them open to get to the seeds inside, and at Asami's insistence they would eat the pomegranates with bowls of ice cream and gummy bears. She'd always had a terrible sweet tooth, much to her parents' chagrin. For a moment she lay there on the grass, listening to the quiet sounds of the forest around her. Then she opened her mouth and caught a drop of rain on her tongue. "Were you watching me sleep?" she asked.

Yasuko sat in the same spot Jinora had been sitting in, but now Jinora was gone; the garden was empty except for the two of them. "You caught me," she said. She held two large ceramic mugs in her hands, and she held one out to Asami. "Tea?"

Asami took the mug from her and cradled it between her palms. It was her favourite flavour, hoji-cha; the taste was smokey and slightly charred, which Asami liked. "Korra called the house today. She wanted to know if you were okay," said Yasuko, after a moment.

Asami pushed herself up with one hand and brushed off her dress. "Sorry," she muttered.

"What for?"

"For making you worry. I haven't been myself lately."

"Oh, sweetie. You have nothing to apologise for." Yasuko blew on her hoji-cha and took a sip. "You should call Korra back. She's a nice girl. They're all nice girls." Asami made a non-committal noise in her throat, causing her mother to cock an eyebrow at her. "Oh, just give them a chance."

"What if—what if I call her, and it turns out she doesn't want to be friends with me?" Asami demanded suddenly. "What if—what if she just thinks I'm a freak?"

"Why on Earth would she think you're a freak?"

She took a huge gulp of tea. "Never mind."

Yasuko put her tea down on the ground and stretched her arms up to the sky. "You know, when I first met your father, I didn't like him that much. He'd always walk past the market on his way home and stop by my stall to look at my drawings, but he'd never buy anything, so I thought he was as much of an uptight ass as he appeared. But he kept coming by the market, and later I found out he'd been wanting to talk to me for ages, but he'd never been able to gather up the courage. And I mean, I _know_ he can be difficult to talk to about some things, but he's honest. Not a lot of men are—they try to play games. Hiroshi never pretends to be anyone. He's always himself and he's unapologetic about it—even if it comes off as rude or tactless to others. So I didn't even realise it at first—but one day I woke up and thought, 'Oh no, I love this man'."

She raised her mug to her lips, and Asami thought she looked very young and lovely as she told her this story, like a teenager all over again.

"Asami my darling, it was never part of my plan to fall in love with your father. When I was your age, all I wanted to do was travel to Europe and draw pictures of all the beautiful medieval towns and castles. It was never part of my plan to get married, or have a child. Getting pregnant in my twenties—I never even saw that coming."

"What are you trying to say, that I was a mistake?"

" _No._ " Yasuko slapped her arm lightly. "What I'm saying is, when I met Hiroshi, when I had you, I never could have imagined—I never suspected that I was missing something until the two of you came along. You made my life complete, and so, so wonderful. You came out with this big shock of black hair, just like his, and these big green eyes that looked like mine but also had a bit of him in them, too … it's always the people you least expect, that's who you end up falling in love with, is what I'm saying. So when you _do_ meet someone, you've got to cherish it."

At that very moment, Asami's phone pinged in her dress pocket. She didn't need to look at the ID to see who it was; Korra had been texting her non-stop since yesterday, but she didn't tell her mother that. She'd figured that maybe if she ignored it, it would go away—but things were never that simple, were they?

"Love, huh?" She chewed her bottom lip, frowning at her mother. "That's a big word."

"Not really. Only four letters." Yasuko smirked mischievously at her, and Asami rolled her eyes.

"Now I know which side of the family I get my abysmal sense of humor from."

"The better side, trust me. Although sometimes I wonder if you're more like Hiroshi than you care to admit." Yasuko kissed her cheek. "Call Korra, okay?"

Asami only stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at her in response. Her fingers crept into her pocket, closing around her phone. Jinora's charm had worked; the voices in her head had ceased. For once in her life, everything was quiet, and crystal clear.

Awake: she was awake.


	10. The Artist

Korra paused at the bottom of the steps leading towards the Silver House, nibbling anxiously on her lower lip.

She could hear music blasting from one of the open windows on the second floor. The Satomobile wasn't parked in the driveway—was Mrs Sato out, and had Asami gone with her? Katara's bedroom was on the other side of the house, overlooking the back garden, she knew that much. And Katara didn't listen to music; like every other adult over the age of sixty, she only listened to talk radio.

She walked up the steps slowly, hesitantly, her hand reaching for the door. The breeze disturbed the wind chimes hanging from the porch, making them tinkle softly. Korra stood there, her fingers frozen inches above the doorknob. A funny thought had suddenly occurred to her—she didn't have a very long attention span, so funny thoughts had a habit of doing that— _will I get struck by lightning, if I try to go inside?_ Four hundred years ago, it was believed that if a witch tried to step inside a church or some other holy place, she'd be incinerated on the spot, snuffed out like a cockroach. Katara said it was just misogynistic propaganda, but she hadn't been there. She hadn't _lived_ it, like Korra had. It had taken her years—no, centuries, to unlearn those thoughts. That she was unclean, crooked, impure, _wicked._ She had seen fathers lock their daughters in the chicken coop overnight without any food or blankets in the middle of winter, just because the crops were failing and the goats were giving blood instead of milk. People back then didn't get the flu; any strange ailments were the result of a witch's curse, and the only cure was to make an incision in the temple with a knife and drain the evil out. Korra's right shoulder ached. The wound had healed long ago, and Unalaq was dead in the ground, but she could still hear the ghostly echo of his axe, a dull, wet _thunk._

It was easier to live nowadays—but the world had gotten smaller. Korra had never met or heard of other witches, apart from Katara, Opal, Kuv, and Jinora. The covens had all known each other once, but not any more. Either they were all in hiding, or they'd died out. And Raava had not spoken to them in years, no matter how much Katara prayed with her incense and her crystals and the little wooden shrine in the back of her garden, or how many times Kuvira opened up the _Republic City Times_ and announced that there'd been another woman burned to death in some distant Indian countryside, another little girl bullied and mutilated by her classmates in Seoul, because there was something weird about her, she didn't have any friends, she was the shy quiet type. Always the same story. _This world is not made for a woman like you,_ Katara had told her the day she cut her hair off. The day Korra had jumped in front of a train at Republic City Central Station, because she'd been thinking about Nina and missing her: when she woke up, she was in the spare bedroom of the Silver House. Katara had put a bath on for her in the next room, and then she'd helped Korra wash her long, feral hair, holding onto her scarred shoulder with her hand, while Korra cried and cried and cried. _You are made of stars, each more beautiful and bright than the next, but this world does not understand beauty. This world is cruel and harsh to women like you. One by one, it will try to rip those stars out of the sky and scatter them in the ocean, so that their light will never be seen again. But you will rise. That is your gift, Korra. Every time it happens, you will rise again. Not even the darkness of the ocean can smother out that light._

Katara had said there was no such thing as bad witches, that the Order—and the church—had just invented that story to control the general population through religious hysteria, but still Korra hesitated before putting her hand on the door, just in case. It had been raining lightly when she'd left Sacred Heart, and the sky was cloudy and grey. For the millionth time, she glanced self-consciously down at her outfit: a lacy crop top thing she'd borrowed from Kuvira, a flared tennis skirt, and Opal's purple jelly sandals. She didn't own anything remotely girly or pretty—but for Asami she wanted to be. She was inadequate, as far from a good witch—the phrase itself was an oxymoron—as they could possibly come. But she wanted to try. For Asami, she would do anything.

With a deep breath, she knocked on the door. There was no answer. She tried again, peering through the little panes of glass with squinted eyes. The house appeared to be dark inside. She turned the handle, but the door was locked. Music still swelled from the second floor at full volume, so someone had to be home. She could probably unlock the door magically, hell, she could probably kick it down if she wanted to—but she didn't want to give the wrong impression. So far, Asami had ignored all her efforts to contact her. She'd tried to exercise self-control and leave it be; Opal and Kuv both said that Asami would talk to her when and if she wanted to. Korra hadn't been able to wait; it wasn't in her nature. Last night, she'd sent Asami one final text—nothing sappy or anything, just two words: _g_ _ood night._ Asami hadn't replied, but it was the thought that counted, right?

She walked across the porch and leaned over the rail, peering towards the row of windows on the second floor. Could she do it? It wasn't that far up. But Katara would kill her if she saw. She'd been adamant about secrecy from the start. The world had gotten smaller, and so had Raava. No matter what, their magic must never, ever be exposed.

"Fuck it," Korra said out loud, her favourite phrase. She jumped up on the rail, balancing on her tip-toes like a gymnast: then she bent her knees, twisted her elbows into her sides, and pushed off lightly. Her body shot upwards like a cork popping from a champagne bottle, soaring and then floating. Levitation was something she'd never really got the hang of (although Opal was a natural at it): if you pushed off too hard, then your body would get caught up in the momentum and just keep going, until you fell or crashed into something; the trick was to keep your elbows tucked in and launch from your starting point as softly as possible. Korra wasn't soft, she was all hard edges, tangles of ropey muscle and fierce teeth, a laugh that was more of a bark, and calloused, sunburnt hands—but her aim _was_ good, and she landed right next to the open window through which the music was still pouring. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she leaned forwards and poked her head through the gap in the curtains, into the room beyond.

At first, she was confused. The entire floor was covered in sheets of newspaper, laid out and overlapping one another. All the furniture—the bed, the wardrobe, the antique writing desk, was pushed up against one end, next to the door. She turned her head and saw Asami—Asami dressed in nothing but an oversized T-shirt and briefs that hugged her slim hips, hair all piled on top of her head with long tendrils snaking past her ears, green eyes alight with a strange, blazing energy that Korra had never seen before—she stood with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, several paintbrushes in one hand and a plastic art palette in the other. Korra didn't know what it was, couldn't put her finger on it exactly—but there was power in that room, power so strong she could almost reach out and touch it—something was unfurling, taking shape

( _being born_ )

Swaying in time to the music, Asami swirled her brush around in globs of purple and pink paint before feathering it onto the wall in wide, restless arcs. She was painting a sunset: violent streaks of yellow and orange flashed across the wall in dripping stripes, bleeding into a deep crimson, as dark as a bruise. It was only a painting, but it took up the whole width of the wall and the sheer size of it, the depth and vibrancy of the colours, the ferocious way Asami was just splashing them onto her canvas with complete abandon, was breathtaking. The painting was alive, burning a hole in Korra's retinas the longer she looked at it.  _I shouldn't be here,_ she thought suddenly, guiltily. _She_ _wouldn't want me to see this._ This was something private, not meant for eyes such as hers. It was time to go.

Quietly, she started to pull her head back through the curtains. That was when the song ended; Asami whirled around, her mouth opening in surprise as she caught sight of Korra's head bobbing in the window. Korra panicked; the momentum keeping her body in the air failed, and she plummeted to the ground like a stone. That was the thing about levitation: once you got airborne it was hard to keep yourself like that for long. She landed with a thud in the flowerbed about half a second later.

"Korra?" she heard Asami call, somewhere above her. " _Korra_? Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine." A rose bush was sticking into her neck painfully, and another was poking her in the mouth. Several sharp thorns were embedded in her palms, welling blood, but apart from that she was unscathed. Any other person falling from that would have been paralysed, or at least broken all their bones. "Just fucking peachy."

She heard muffled footsteps and then the sound of a door banging open; next second Asami's anxious face was inches from her own, her hand gripping Korra's and pulling her out of the dirt. Asami's eyes were huge, magnified to bug-like proportions by a pair of heavy black glasses. The greenness of her irises somehow seemed magnified, too; had they always been that green? Her cheeks were flushed a rose petal red, and pearls of moisture glimmered on her lips and forehead. Korra didn't understand; she had thought Asami was beautiful before, but now she seemed impossibly so. The aura of power was all around her, illuminating her delicate features; she looked unreal, otherworldly. "What are you doing here?" Asami demanded, her voice breathless. "Why didn't you just _knock_?"

"The front door was locked," said Korra, rubbing her backside. "And I wanted to see you." She jutted out her lower lip defensively, resisting the urge to spout out numerous accusations: _you left me, you didn't say goodbye, and now I_ _'m attached to you_ _._

"You've got dirt all over you," said Asami, and Korra's heart jumped as she ran her fingers through the tips of her hair and wiped her cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. Did Asami know the effect she had on people, could she tell? "How did you even get up there?"

Korra stretched her face in what she hoped was a silly, charming grin. "Shit, you got me, 'Sams. I wasn't going to tell you, but you got me. I'm actually part of a travelling circus. I was raised by acrobats. Climbing onto two storey windows, that's one of my magic tricks."

Asami suddenly laughed. It was a surprising sound, one that Korra didn't think she'd heard sober: light and bell-like and actually kind of goofy, with a little snort in each breath. She immediately made it her mission to make Asami laugh more, because it was a lovely thing to hear. "I can never tell when you're joking and when you're not," said Asami, with a shake of her head. "You idiot, you could have hurt yourself really badly."

"Could have, should have, but didn't. I have nine lives."

Asami glanced up at the window again, a slight frown creasing her forehead. _Shit._  Korra quickly changed the subject. "I like your glasses."

Asami's hand immediately flew to her enormous black frames, pushing them up the bridge of her nose shyly. "Thanks. They're just my—um, art glasses. I can see far away, but not close up. I need them for like, little details and stuff."

"Yeah, I saw," said Korra. "I didn't know you were an artist. You're really good." Half a beat passed before she realised the implications of what she'd said. "I mean—I didn't mean to see—no one was answering the door—I wasn't creeping on you, I promise –"

"It's okay." Asami looked at her feet. "It's not my best work. I just had some stuff to get off my chest, you know?"

 _Don't actually look at her chest, don't actually look at her chest, don't actually look at her chest,_ Korra told herself furiously. There was a row of pretty little pot plants lined up next to the welcome mat beside the door, which she stared at fixedly, biting her lip again. "Yeah, I get it. Art as therapy, right?"

Asami's face seemed to relax a little; she looked up and shot Korra a bright smile. "Yeah. Right."

"Your mom home?"

"No. She went with Katara to buy some groceries. They won't be back until later."

 _Well then._ Korra decided to cut right to the chase. "Um. About the other night."

"About that." Asami's eyes were on her bare feet again, her hands twisting together nervously. Korra wanted nothing more than to grab her chin and lift her face up, so that she could look into those eyes and search for answers. She bit down on her lip harder, until she tasted blood. "I'm sorry I left, Korra. Something came up. It's—it's complicated."

"I just want to know if it was something we did," she said. "I know the girls and I can get out of hand sometimes. If our shenanigans made you feel uncomfortable or anything—"

"Oh, no! It wasn't anything like that. That part was fun. I like your friends."

"Well, they like you, too. So what was the problem?" Korra winced at her tone; she wished she didn't have to sound so needy, demanding. She wished she could be like other girls, gentle, caring, tactful, graceful. Never: her ego was like a child tugging on her parent's sleeve: _pay attention to me! Love me!_ "I—sorry. I just want to know, was it me? Was it us—spooning?"

"No, no. The spooning was—great. You're great." Asami was blushing now. _God, she's so cute,_ Korra thought. Then she started blushing, too, because she realised that Asami was blushing at the thought of _her_. "I'm sorry for hurting your feelings."

"You didn't hurt my feelings. I was just really worried about you. I called you like, a million times."

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. I have a lot of stuff going on." Asami held up her arms, which were covered all the way from the tips of her fingers to her elbows in streaks of paint.

"It's okay," Korra said at once. "You don't need to apologise or explain anything. We're here for you— _I'm_ here for you. It's what friends are for."

"Friends," repeated Asami slowly, quietly. Another pause hung in the air. Korra watched Asami's hands twist together, then unravel, then become tangled again. They seemed to share the same nervous twitch. There was a corkscrew of hair that always hung from Asami's face at a strange angle; Korra reached out and pushed it away, hooking it back over her earlobe where it belonged. For the first time since they'd met, Asami didn't flinch at her touch. Instead, she closed her eyes as Korra's fingers grazed her skin, turning her cheek to meet them, so that her face rested in the crook of Korra's palm. "Your hands are always so warm," she sighed; her voice was so quiet Korra wasn't sure if she'd spoken at first.

Korra quickly jumped her hand away. "Sorry, they're kind of sweaty."

Asami shook her head and opened her eyes halfway, looking at her through heavy, almost sleepy lids. "My hands are always cold," she whispered. "Cold hands, cold heart."

Korra had promised Opal and Kuvira that she wouldn't fall in love, because the catch about living forever was that she eventually outlived everyone she cared about, and she still hadn't kicked the habit. But Asami was standing there in her underwear and a T-shirt, covered in paint from head to toe, glasses hanging crookedly off her nose, sweat sticking her hair to her forehead in dazed curls, gazing at Korra through soft, thick eyelashes as if she were dreaming. Korra had made a promise, but it was hard not to fall in love, especially when Asami was looking at her like that.

"I'll warm them, then," she said. She locked their fingers together and tried not to shiver: Asami was right, her hand was  _icy_ , despite the humidity in the air. "Your hands are hereby confiscated for the rest of the day. Or at least until your mom comes home."

Asami giggled. "She's going to be out for a while. How are we going to entertain ourselves?"

 _"_ I'm sure we'll find a way," Korra said. "Why are graveyards so noisy?"

Asami's mouth twitched. "I don't know, why are graveyards so noisy?"

"Because of all the _coffin._ "

"Hurrdurr. What do you call a skeleton who presses the door bell?"

"What?"

"A dead ringer."

Asami snorted and then Korra snorted, because Asami was laughing at her own joke and that was just about the _dorkiest_ thing she had ever seen. "What do you call a skeleton who likes to tell bad jokes?" she asked.

Asami groaned. " _Really_ , Korra? That's about the most obvious—"

Grinning, Korra spoke over her. " _Humerus_. You know you love it, Asami."

Asami looked up at the sky, shielding her face with her free hand. Korra noticed that she still kept their other hands linked together. "It's stopped raining," she said. "Do you want to get out of here?"

"And go where?"

"Anywhere." Asami shrugged. "I told you I'd teach you how to skate, didn't I? And you said you could take me places along the boardwalk."

"What, you mean, like right now?"

"Yes, silly. Unless of course, you don't want to—" Asami started to turn around, and Korra yanked her back by the hand.

" _Noooo_ , I want you—I mean, I want _to_ ," she mumbled, fucking up her words. "I have a few spots in mind. You got skates?"

"They're inside. You look like you could probably fit into my mom's." Asami looked down at her bare legs. "Um. I'd also like to put on some proper clothes, if that's okay with you."

"Hmm, if you must. I do like you just the way you are, though. Maybe you should just own it."

She rolled her eyes. "Nice try, Korra."

“What? I'm just saying—have confidence in your body. Work that updo."

"You're so weird." But Korra caught an amused twinkle in Asami's eyes as she stepped inside the Silver House. "I'll be right back."

"If I can't have no pants Asami, can I at least have nerd glasses Asami?" Korra called after her.

"You're hardly in any position to make requests." The screen door clattered shut, and Korra sat down on Katara's rocking chair. She'd made a promise, but promises were very much like rules: made to be broken. She was still smiling to herself when Asami returned, wearing a sun dress and a pair of slouchy grey sneakers, but with her nerd glasses sitting on her nose, roller skates dangling from her fist. The two girls walked down the steps together, heading for the riverbank where the tree frogs croaked and the boardwalk disappeared into the vines. 


	11. Wan the Walker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> asami goes with korra on a life changing field trip

"Keep your knees bent, Korra, and your arms out for balance."

"Like this?" Korra's face was red with effort, her legs wobbling dangerously as she fought to stand up on Katara's skates.

"Yes. I can see you holding your breath, don't hold your breath," Asami instructed her patiently. She held onto Korra's arms with her hands, her dress billowing out behind her in the breeze coming off the river. "It'll be easier to balance if you breathe, trust me."

"Easy—for—you—to say— _whoa_!" Korra cried out as she slipped; Asami quickly steadied her, pulling her back upright before they both fell.

"You're still not breathing," she said. "What are you trying to do, Korra, lay an egg?"

Korra exhaled impatiently and raised an eyebrow at her. "Ooh, someone's got a sassy mouth."

"I've always had a sassy mouth, you've just never seen it."

"Yeah, I bet." Korra grinned. "You know what? Fuck it. Watch _this_ —"

"Korra,  _wait—_!"

Too late. Korra pushed off before Asami had a chance to stop her; she went zig-zagging down the boardwalk at top speed, her knees knocking into one another as she swerved over the wooden slats—then the skate on her right foot slipped in a rain puddle, and for the second time that day Korra fell on her ass. "Korra!" gasped Asami, skating after her. "You  _idiot_ , why didn't you wait until I let go of you?"

"Lighten up, 'Sams, you sound like Katara." Korra pushed herself to her feet, sporting a bloody lip like it was a badge of honour. Asami tried to act disapproving, and then started to laugh again—she couldn't help it. Korra's enthusiasm was infectious. She'd laughed more openly and loudly in these last few days than—well, ever, actually.

"You're so reckless," she said. "You can't just say 'fuck it', and throw caution to the wind. At least look where you're going first."

"I say 'fuck it' all the time. Life's more fun that way. You should try saying it more often, 'Sams, it'll do you a world of good."

"My mother doesn't like me swearing in the house." Asami folded her arms. "And no, I disagree. Life's not more fun if you're getting yourself hurt all the time. Can you try that for me, Korra? Not getting hurt all the time?"

Korra seemed to think about it, then that cheeky half smile made its return on her face, the one that always made Asami both slightly worried and also a little breathless. "Alright, just for you, I won't say 'fuck it'. But if, and only  _if_ , for one day you don't say 'sorry'."

Asami frowned at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. You say sorry all the time. For like, the littlelest, silliest things that aren't even your fault."

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do! Like just before, you apologised  _three_ times within the space of a minute."

"You've been counting?"

"Well, yeah. It happens  _that_ often, it's actually ridiculous."

Asami felt her face flush and her hands curl into defensive fists. "I'm sorry, but what else am I supposed to say?"

"See! You did it again! I can't believe you're apologising for  _apologising_."

"So what? You were upset, Korra, I felt bad, and it wasn't right, leaving you like that without saying goodbye—"

Korra laughed then, actually crossed her hands over her stomach and tossed back her head and laughed. "You still don't get it, do you? Listen, Asami: I'm  _not_ angry at you. I never was. That wasn't why I came to see you. I never wanted to hear an apology. I was—holy shit, how can you be so dense? I was worried about you. I just—I just wanted to see if you were okay. I don't care that you left. As long as you're okay, then I'm don't want anything else." She laughed again, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry," said Asami automatically. She did it without even thinking.

"Don't say sorry!" Korra shouted, her eyes flashing. "If I can't say 'fuck it', then you can't say 'sorry'. Alright?!"

"A-alright."

"Spit on it." Korra spat into her palm and held it out to Asami, who wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Ugh, Korra, gross."

"Too bad, 'Sams. Our Faustian pact doesn't mean anything unless we exchange bodily fluids. Come on, spit."

Asami hesitated, then spat quietly into her hand and shook with Korra. "Let's try this again," she said, wiping her hand on her dress, "Hold my arms. Breathe. Bend your knees."

*

Korra's laugh suited her.

Like its owner, it was loud and larger than life. Asami loved watching how it transformed her: her whole face screwed up and her body doubled over, like she was putting every inch of herself into it. It made Asami's heart rate go up and her face flush red and all of a sudden she didn't know what to say. She was normally good at being stoic and keeping her cards close to her chest, but Korra was slowly unraveling her, stitch by stitch. The more time they spent together, the more Korra's laugh got under her skin. Until it felt like they had been friends not for just three days, but for a whole lifetime.

Asami hadn't realised how much she missed it, until Korra had shown up at her window. How much she missed being with her, laughing with her. She made Asami feel light and whole again: just the way a girl should be.

Holding Korra's hand, that was another thing she felt like she'd been doing forever—Korra's hand just seemed natural and comfortable and  _right_ interlocked with her own, and Asami had never held anyone's hand before, had never been one for physical touch but with Korra it was so easy. As they skated down the boardwalk hand-in-hand (even though Korra had managed to stand up hours ago, she still did not let go of Asami, had seemed reluctant to let go of her), Asami marveled at this feeling, this strange, foreign feeling Korra had awakened within her. Maybe it was the memory of her finger on Asami's lips, of her hands exploring the plains of Asami's face and neck and the feel of her tattoos under Asami's own hands in the secretive darkness of the dormitory; maybe it was the bright blueness of her eyes, blinding her and slipping between the cracks of her facade. Maybe it was because Asami was so used to being alone that having a friend all of a sudden was actually really scary. She had to be brave; she had to be, because she didn't want to lose it, whatever it was that she and Korra had. Asami touched the spot on her cheek where Jinora had kissed her. It seemed even now that the charm was still working. She just had to be brave.

*

To her credit, Korra was a fast learner. They reached the Han River Pier in the late afternoon.

The rain had started up again by that time, but it was only a light drizzle, and there was no wind coming off the river. After removing their skates, the two girls strolled down the pier arm-in-arm. Asami took pictures of everything she saw with Yasuko's camera; the pier was a hot, bustling place bursting with sound and colour despite the bad weather, and she wanted to soak it all in the way an actual tourist visiting the spirit vines for the first time would. She took photos of the little boats bobbing in their births, of the stray dogs that wandered up and down the boardwalk snapping playfully at her heels, of the funny old fishermen that smoked long pipes like Katara's and gutted the gigantic eels they'd caught in their nets. According to Korra, eel was a local delicacy in the Spirit Vines, and the pier had been built in the shape of an eel on purpose. They sat with their legs dangling over the water, eating from plastic plates piled high with grilled eel and bell peppers. The meat was gloriously tender and fresh, and melted in their mouths like butter; Asami thought it even rivalled Katara's cooking.

Further along the pier there was a market. People young and old sat under the shade of stripy umbrellas and canopies dripping with rain, flapping paper fans at their sweaty faces as they shouted out their wares to passersby: rows and rows of jewelry, vintage pulp magazines, dusty, tottering piles of glassware, matching tea sets, tourist T-shirts sporting slogans like  _I Went To The Spirit Vines And All I Got Was This Stupid T-shirt_ , beautifully painted chopsticks gleaming inside lacquered boxes ('hand crafted in Ba Sing Se—get 3 for the price of 2!'), boxes stacked high with old records, gorgeous beaded saris hanging from delicate coathangers ('We can measure you in 15 mins and have your sari ready by the time you come back from your hike!'). Asami bought one of the matching tea sets for her mother and haggled with another vendor for a jewelled necklace that she thought Katara would like; Korra, meanwhile, hovered uncertainly over the pulp magazines, then grew delighted when she came across a box of lesbian pulp fiction from the 50s. She cleaned out the whole box for less than a couple of dollars and gleefully showed Asami her haul: titles like  _Satan Was a Lesbian_ ,  _No Adam for Eve_ , and  _Lesbian Gym: The Story of a Virgin Who Was Seduced By the Wrong Kind of Loving._ The racy covers of these books alone were enough to make Asami blush from her cheeks to the tops of her ears, and she quickly busied herself with photographing a pair of dirty children playing a game of tag up and down the pier.

"Wow," she said, as they reached the last group of stalls. "What  _is_ that, Korra?"

Korra looked around in the direction she'd pointed in, and maybe it was a trick of the light—but Asami thought she saw a shadow passed briefly over her face. "Oh. That's Raava," she said, shielding her eyes with her hand.

A sudden chill settled over Asami's shoulders. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Korra, staring at the huge statue rising out of the river just past the pier. It had to be fifty feet tall, at least. The woman's eyes were cast towards the boardwalk and the forest beyond, as if in sorrow. Yet there was something cruel about that face, Asami thought. The stone was strangely untouched by the elements: white and smooth, as if it had been carved just that day. But it had to be hundreds of years old, if what Opal had told her about the history of the vines was true. Raava's long flowing hair was pinned in place by an elaborate headdress. Spiral patterns trailed down her neck and hands, shot through with veins of pale azure. She wore a gown that parted at the neck, with long, trailing sleeves that disappeared under the water. Her hands were closed into fists, with the knuckles of each hand touching, as if she were meditating.  _Raava, goddess of light and balance, Mother to All Living Things …_ so Opal had said. Asami looked into that unmoving stone face, the blank white eyes, the haughty line of the jaw, and shivered again. The unknown artist had no doubt meant to depict Raava as beautiful—and she was. But she was also terrible, like a forest fire blazing on the horizon.

The spiral patterns curling along Raava's hands flashed like sapphires in the afternoon sun, so bright that Asami was forced to look away.

"She's not exactly a looker, is she?" said Korra.

Asami gave a shaky laugh. "No."

"They tried to tear it down, you know. The Red Priests of the Black Goat."

“Why did they hate her so much?”

"Witches are unnatural creatures, remember?" Korra shrugged. "Raava threw the world out of balance when she scattered the seeds of her magic, and in the eyes of the Order, two wrongs made a right."

"How'd the women get her out there?" wondered Asami. "It's such a huge sculpture. Did they carve it and then move it into the river somehow? Or was it carved before the river filled the channel? And where did they get the stone from?"

"The mountains, apparently. The witches carved her out of the rock, like they did with the White Temple."

The back of Asami's neck prickled unpleasantly as she remembered her dream. "You mean the shrine they built for Raava, right?"

Korra nodded, slapping restlessly at the mosquitoes that were landing on her neck.

Asami turned to her. "Have  _you_ ever seen a temple like that?"

"No one has. People have tried to find it, but the spirit vines have grown too wild. That's why it's so easy to get lost in them if you aren't careful. They just swallow everything up."

"You talk about them like they're alive."

Korra just shrugged, that slight crease between her eyebrows appearing again as she frowned thoughtfully at her shoes. " _The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I can sleep_ ," she suddenly recited.

Asami's eyebrows shot up. "I didn't know you were a fan of Robert Frost."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me, 'Sams," Korra said with a wink. She reached out and tugged gently on Asami's hand. "Come on. You remember how we got the Ouija board from the tourist information centre? Professor Zei is a bit of a weirdo, but he knows a lot more about the history of this place than I do."

With a start, Asami realised she'd been so focused on the enormous statue sitting in the middle of the river that she hadn't even noticed the building next to the pier, standing above the water on wooden stilts. A large, drooping willow tree grew around it, hugging the roof and porch with long, gentle fronds. A sign hung in one window: EEL BAIT, KAYAK TOURS, HIKING SUPPLIES, POST CARDS. Just below that, there was a picture of someone's hand, scrawled with the words PALM READINGS: 9-10AM EVERY THURSDAY. BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL.

A ramp led off from the main pier to the tourist centre; Korra walked across this and pushed the door open, ignoring the 'Closed' sign hanging above the doorknob. Thunder growled above Asami's head as she followed her inside.  _The woods are lovely, dark and deep._ The way Korra had paraphrased that line of the poem – her voice soft, lilting, oddly sing-song—had given her a fright for a moment there. She'd almost sounded like she was casting a spell.

*

The tourist centre was more like someone's boat house: dark and cramped, boiling hot, stinking of old books, swamp water, and sweat.

Great fishing nets hung from the ceiling, tangled with shells and dried river weeds. More shells sat on the window sill, gathering dust and cobwebs. A portable fan whirred and spun in a corner, blowing warm, musty air in their faces. Fishing poles, hunting knives, life jackets, maps hung from the walls; every other inch of space was crammed with bookshelves. Asami glanced in between the stacks and saw Ouija boards, astrology charts, crystals, animal skulls, strange liquids in glass bottles:  _Magickal Incense, Talking Boards, Amulets, Edward Gorey Tarot Cards—SPECIAL EDITION!_  shouted a nearby sign in untidy scrawl. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Asami drifted away from Korra and picked up one of the books:  _The Enchanted Forest_ , by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Korra creep over to the cash register, where the only sign of life was a half-eaten cup of Flameo noodles sitting atop a stack of books. That was when she heard it, just above the buzz of the fan: low scrapes and bumps, the sound of someone muttering under their breath. A wicked grin on her lips now, Korra began drumming her hands along the counter top, then picked up one of the books and slammed it back down with a loud  _bang._ Asami heard a yelp of fright; then the sweaty, red visage of a man appeared above the counter, his bushy black eyebrows bristling with annoyance.

"Who goes there? I'm closed today, didn't you read the sign? Oh— _Korra_!" The man's eyes seemed to ignite as he realised who his visitor was. He suddenly scrabbled over the counter with all the energy of a teenage boy, his hand closing on Korra's arm in a vice grip. "You must come and see this! This is big, Korra, very, very big."

He plunged his hand into the pocket of his baggy sweatpants and handed her an enormous magnifying glass. "There's no doubt about it this time," he continued excitedly. “The readings are off the charts. I've analysed at least ten samples, and I'm positive—absolutely  _positive—_ there is an infestation of fairies on this side of the river! Come behind the counter. Look underneath, where the floor meets the wall. Can you see it?"

"Yeah, I see it. More like an infestation of dust." Korra's voice was muffled as she bent underneath the counter with the magnifying glass pressed to her face. Then she straightened up, coughing. "Professor, when was the last time you vacuumed in here?"

"That is not dust! It is the residue of fairies, characterised by the strange circular markings. Look here—" The man pulled one of the books off the counter, knocking the cup of Flameo noodles to the ground in his enthusiasm. "No! My samples!"

"Hey, Asami, can you open a window? I think it's time the professor got some fresh air," Korra told her. 

The man cringed back like an animal as Asami put down her book and obliged, throwing open one of the windows. A soft breeze, wonderfully cool, swept through the shack, bringing the sounds of the market with it.

"That's better." Korra surveyed the interior of the shack, her nose wrinkling slightly; while the reappearance of natural sunlight had brightened their surroundings considerably, it also threw into greater relief the rotting floorboards at many intervals, the mouldy piles of clothes in the corner, and the cobweb that stretched from one bookshelf to the bell above the door. "No offence, professor, but this place is a dump. When was the last time you ate a proper meal? You're going to die of scurvy if you don't incorporate some Vitamin C in your diet soon."

"Flameo instant noodles meet all my daily calorie intake requirements." The man ran his hands through his greying hair in an agony of frustration. "It took me all night to analyse those samples! My fairy research is ruined! This is Ba Sing Se University all over again—oh, what a world, what a world!"

Korra rolled her eyes at Asami, as if to say, _get a load of this guy._ "Asami, this is Professor Zei, the owner of the Spirit Vine Tourist Information Centre. Professor Zei, this is my friend, Asami."

"Just call me Zei," said the man morosely. He staggered to his feet and shook Asami's hand. His fingers were calloused and incredibly strong, over-eager; Asami was released from his grip feeling as though her arm had been loosened from her socket. "I _was_ the previous Head of the Anthropology Department at Ba Sing Se University, until they threw me out."

"Tell her about your human soul research, Zei, she'll love that." Korra pushed herself up on the counter, flipping open _Satan Was a Lesbian._ She saw Asami looking and smirked. For some reason, Asami felt an odd swooping sensation in her gut that had nothing to do with the slightly fetid air of the cabin.  _That smile is going to be the death of me and she knows it,_ she thought.

"Oh, it's all just politics," Zei said with a huff. “You want my advice, girls? Never be an academic if you can avoid it. They're the most vile, petty, callous, two-faced people in the world. The twits in the Science Department sought to discredit my work! They said I was a fraud, unworthy of my position! They were just jealous of the discoveries I'd made. For I had found evidence that the human soul is real, and definable by weight! 21 grams, to be exact!"

He puffed out his chest, as if expecting Asami to be amazed by this news. When she merely looked confused, he deflated a little. "But did they listen? Did they care? Oh, no. They _laughed_ at me. They called my theories rubbish, my methods unethical, and my conclusions questionable! And those were just the abusive emails I received. You should have seen the _journal articles_  they wrote about me!"

Asami stared at him, slightly open-mouthed. She then noticed the T-shirt he was wearing: a picture of a UFO hovering over a forest, with the words I WANT TO BELIEVE printed underneath in white capital letters. She caught Korra's eye, still struggling not to laugh behind the pages of her book.

"I'm—I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "Is that how you, um, ended up here?"

Zei frowned at her. "I prefer to think of it as fate," he said. "When I was a young lad, I was fascinated by the legends of witches living in the spirit wilds. My mother and father were both accountants. They had no time for all that spiritual hocus pocus, but their hatred for all things out of the ordinary only increased _my_ curiosity in turn. When I was—relieved from my position at the university, I took it as a sign that this—" he waved his hand in the direction of the window, where the vague shape of Raava's statue rose in the distance, "—was my true calling."

"By the way, professor," said Korra, "Opal wants a refund for that Ouija board you sold her. We tried holding a seance, but nothing happened. She's very upset."

"Something happened," Asami corrected her. "I saw it. Jinora did, too."

Zei scratched at the days-old stubble on his chin, peering at Asami with bright interest. "You held the seance after midnight? With no external influences?"

Korra hesitated. "We may have had a few drinks. _Please_ don't tell Katara that."

Zei waved his hand dismissively, as if the issue of underage drinking was of no concern to him. "I knew you would see something," he announced. He jumped behind the counter and began pulling out drawers one by one, rummaging around in the contents until he found what he was looking for: a tape recorder. "In a place like the spirit vines, the things that have happened in the past become embedded in the landscape. Like memories that can never die. That's why so many people get the feeling that the vines are alive. Not everyone—some of us are more sensitive than others. The younger girl—Jinora—you said she's always been susceptible to such things?"

Korra nodded reluctantly. "Her house is in the middle of a Nexus—"  
  
"Nexus?" Asami repeated, confused.  
  
"An incredibly rare metaphysical event whereby five interconnecting points converge on a central location," Zei explained, rubbing his chin again. "Growing up in an environment of such immense spiritual potential would make your friend more open-minded to the mystical." He turned to Asami. "What did you see? Can you describe it for me?"

He pressed a button on the tape recorder; there was a click as the machine came to life, and a small red light started to flash. Asami swallowed. "A big, black thing," she said hesitantly. "With red eyes. And a lot of legs." She could feel Korra's eyes on her, and was suddenly seized by the need to tone down her own experience, well aware of how crazy she must sound. "But I was drunk. It could have been just a shadow. The room was really dark."

"There are many paranormal disturbances that have simple, ordinary explanations," said Zei. "People hear sounds in the walls of their house and think they belong to ghosts, when really its the wind in the pipes. It's known as paradolia—a phenomenon in which the mind perceives a familiar pattern in a stimulus where no pattern really exists."

"Except two people out of five saw the same pattern," Korra pointed out.

"Indeed. Just because you can't see something, does that mean it does not exist? No! No one's seen one of Raava's white witches since the time of Wan the Walker, but we all know  _they_ existed." _  
_

"Wan? What is a Wan?" Asami demanded, looking from Korra to Zei.

"Wan was a young man, a nomad," explained Zei. "He was the only outsider to learn witchcraft from the groups of women who lived in the White Temple. Historians love to argue about the exact date he traveled to the vines, but all agree it was no earlier than at least two thousand years ago."

Suddenly filled with new energy, he bustled past her, diving in among the dusty bookshelves. Seconds later he re-emerged, clutching an enormous hardcover tome in his hands. "Wan's original sketches are still intact, and are kept in the Museum of Natural History in Ba Sing Se," he said. "Fortunately, they have been copied and reprinted many times. It was through Wan's eyes that we were able to piece together what happened here."

Korra's ringtone suddenly went off, making Asami jump. She closed _Satan Was_ _a_ _Lesbian_ and plunged her hand down her top, pulling her phone unceremoniously out of her bra. "I've got to take this," she announced. "I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay." Korra touched her shoulder briefly, then stepped outside. Asami waited until she was out of earshot before turning back to Zei.

"Professor, I need to ask you something. But you have to promise me that you won't tell Korra, or anyone else, about it. Does the phrase, 'ten thousand eyes, ten thousand years' mean anything to you?"

All the colour seemed to drain from Zei's face. "Where did you hear that?" he said warily.

Asami licked her lips. "I—I dreamed it."

He drew very close to her, so close that she could smell the sharp tang of his sweat soaking through his T-shirt and the Flameo noodles on his breath. "There are many kinds of spirits," he said, in a harsh whisper. "There are the spirits on the lower astral plane, which are basically the souls of the dead. Unable to move on due to the violent nature of their deaths, they haunt places and people. Then there are the spirits in the spirit world. But it's not the same thing. The spirit world is not an afterlife. It is another reality altogether. Another universe."

"Raava came from the spirit world."

"Yes, yes, so she did. And where light exists, darkness must also. Did Korra tell you that Raava has a brother?”

He took Wan's sketchbook from her and began flipping feverishly through its pages. Asami did not understand. "No. What do you—"

"The phrase 'ten thousand eyes, ten thousand years', appears in some of Wan's sketches, curiously enough," said Zei. "In one particular entry, he speaks of a cataclysmic event that occurred in the vines _before_ the followers of the White Temple was split into two warring factions. An event that nearly tore apart the very fabric of existence."

He shoved the book back to her, his finger planted on the page he wanted her to see. Asami felt an inexplicable dread settle in her gut like descending fog. She did not want to look down—but like the footprints, she _had_ to look down, purely out of morbid curiosity; the call was too strong, irresistible. Trembling, she lowered her gaze.

On the blank page, Wan had painted a picture of a man. His face was gaunt and skull-like, his skin a warm bronze colour. His hair was flaxen, decorated with a crimson headpiece. The upper part of his body was bare, and swirling patterns covered his naked chest, snaking all the way down his biceps and hands. They were similar to the spirals on the Raava statue, except they were not blue, but a dull, sickly pink, the colour of raw meat. The eye sockets were nothing but blackened pits, and in their centre his pupils blazed, like two crimson stars. Stars that burned and burned and burned as they gazed up at Asami. One side of his face was bubbling hideously, falling apart. Like the burning eyes were melting it. The flesh was shrivelling, drawing back, back, to reveal the horror concealed within: black, gaping jaws, an endless maw of darkness. Spidery tendrils that rose like smoke from the powerful torso, reaching, grasping, spreading. And, worst of all, the fiery streaks of crimson running through the black mass like blood through water, filled with a savage, ancient hunger.

 _It's just a picture_ , Asami told herself. _It can't hurt you_.

But this was just a feeble lie she told herself, because she could not face the truth: she had seen this before. She had dreamed about it, she had—she had drawn it herself, even though she hadn't known what she was doing at the time. All she knew was that she'd woken up from a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, and then she'd sat down to draw in the sketchbook. The same sketchbook Vincent had later torn up with his knife. How could she have forgotten? She had drawn the spider without even thinking about it. The spider atop his totem pole, surrounded by his followers in those grotesque animal masks. It had all been part of the same dream; a dream she'd locked up in a dark room and then thrown away the key, because Zei was right: ghosts were real, and the ghosts that lived in the cold, dripping darkness and fed off all her childish ignorance and fear violated every law of the universe. The mind could go to amazing lengths to rationalise the irrational: it was just the wind. Just a trick of the light. Just a nightmare. The alternative was a much murkier path, a path that led to a door behind which unnameable creatures went bump in the night, and madness lay waiting. In the end, it was better to forget it; better to curl up in her mother's arms, bring the covers up to her face, and try to go back to sleep.  

Asami heard a low thudding sound, and realised it was her heart, beating frantically in her chest. Her forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. The chasm had opened up in the back of her brain again, the voices had resumed their argument from each end of the gap, louder and more insistent than they'd ever been.

( _did didn't did_ )

It was just a picture. Yet it seemed to leap off the page the longer she looked at it; those black, wispy tendrils reached up to her, impossibly long. Ready to rip. Ready to tear. Ready to eat her up.

Next to the monster's disintegrating, mutating face, someone, probably Zei, had written a name:

**VAATU**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coincidentally, there once lived a man who tried to weigh the human soul. In 1901, a physician named Duncan MacDougall weighed 6 patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home, in order to test the hypothesis that the soul had mass, and that this mass left the body when its owner passed away. so, at the exact time of death, he placed the subject's bed on an industrial sized scale, which was apparently sensitive to "two-tenths of an ounce". in 4 out of 6 cases, there was a varying amount of unaccounted-for mass loss, the average of which was 21 grams, and MacDougall concluded that these results supported his hypothesis. His studies have since been condemned by the scientific community as unethical, flawed, and unreliable; according to the physicist Robert L. Park, MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit". 
> 
> human!raava and human!vaatu were inspired by [this](http://img07.deviantart.net/7894/i/2014/112/a/f/raava_x_vaatu_by_kat377-d7fmjqf.png) artwork by kathuon and also [this](http://solkaro.tumblr.com/post/67115463449/im-really-fucking-proud-of-this-jesus-just-for-a)


	12. The Creation Myth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story, an old mystery play ... such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing in a quaint, poetic fancy, to some foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?'  
> \- Arthur Machen, _The Great God Pan_

"Every religion has its own myths about the end of the world, after all," said Zei quietly. "Vaatu represents the darkness in man; where Raava is the spirit of balance, he is the spirit of chaos. In his sketchbook, Wan refers to him by many other names, such as 'He Who Eats the Light', the 'Black Goat of the Woods', and the 'Two-Faced God', for in many of the ancient myths Vaatu is both seducer and destroyer."

Asami did not speak. She could not speak. The mere sight of Wan's painting, and the name that was written beneath it, had taken her speech from her. The name that had been sitting on the tip of her tongue, the itch she could not scratch, the sour, metallic aftertaste in the back of her throat; that name was the involuntary shiver down her spine on a hot, windless night, the dream that caused her to wake up in a cold sweat but she could never remember _why_ , the flash of movement out of the corner of her eye but when she turned around, all she could see was her pale, scared reflection staring back at her in the mirror. _Vaatu. Seducer and destroyer. He Who Eats the Light. What's in a name?_

"According to Wan, Raava and Vaatu existed as one spirit, many eons ago," Zei went on. "Their combined energies, however different, kept balance with one another. Wan writes that Raava was Vaatu's mirror image, and Vaatu was hers; two sides of the same coin. That was until Raava gave her gift of magic to the women of the White Temple, and made them the first witches. Vaatu's anger was so great, so catastrophic, it upset the delicate harmony that had kept them bonded together since the dawn of time. On the forty-first day, they broke away from each other completely. Now free from Raava's influence, Vaatu turned all ten thousand of his red eyes on the very witches who had formed a holy alliance with his sister. In a fit of jealousy, greed, and fury, he opened his mouth, and swallowed them whole."

Vaatu, brother of Raava. The darkness in man, the black goat of the woods. Asami remembered the way Jinora had dug her nails into her palms so deeply she'd made herself bleed, back in the dormitory. She'd known. She was the only other person who had seen what Asami had seen; maybe she'd been seeing it her whole life, what lay beyond the veil separating this world from the next. What had she said in the garden? _It's like millions of bodies all writhing together, and they're all screaming ..._

"With each bite, Raava shrunk smaller and smaller," whispered Zei. "As did her magic. In the end, she was no bigger than a teapot. But Vaatu did not stop; the consequences of his hunger was devastating. The White Temple was desecrated, her followers burned at the stake; the skies fell, the dead rose from their graves, and the seas boiled. It seemed that the Age of Magic was done, until a hero rose from the ashes, and fused her soul with Raava."

" _Fused_? Do you mean –"

"Raava possessed her. It is the ultimate spiritual pathway for the women of the White Temple, to become one with their god. Although, it is said, such an ordeal drove this hero mad, in the end. Nonetheless, it was an act of ultimate sacrifice, one that forced Vaatu and his followers out of the light and back into the dark where they belonged. There they have stayed, but for how long? The Age of Magic has given way to the technological revolution; Raava grows weaker every day." He scratched at a bit of peeling sunburn on his nose. "Even now, Vaatu casts his ten thousand eyes over at our world, wanting what He cannot have. During the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its highest point from the north and south poles, the number of strange events and unexplained disappearances in the vines shows a spike. Those tourists were not the only ones to vanish without a trace over the years. The Two-Faced God is always hungry." 

Zei paused, whether for dramatic effect or not, Asami did not know. For a moment, everything was quiet in the shack except for the river, slapping softly against the stilts under their feet. The shack rocked with the movement of the water; across the river, a loon shrieked. Then Zei spoke again.  
  
"Raava gave her magic to the witches, which means her spirit lingers in each and every one of them. If they are killed, then that is a piece of Raava that is gone forever. So if Vaatu were to get his revenge, it would plunge the world into darkness for ten thousand years. Ten thousand eyes, ten thousand years."

The book suddenly felt very heavy in Asami's hands, as if an invisible force was pressing down on it. Shaking slightly, she put her hand on the corner of the page, preparing to flip it over, just so she wouldn't have to look at Vaatu's awful bleeding eyes any more. "He is a trifle unsettling, isn't he?" she heard herself say. 

"Oh, yes." Zei chuckled. "More than a mere trifle. Sometimes I almost feel as though he is watching me with those red eyes of his. That they even _follow_ me around the room!" His smile faded, and he reached out and placed his hand on top of the book. "Am I correct in assuming you are staying at the Silver House?"

"Yes. How did you -"

Zei raised a finger to his lips. "The tale of Raava and Vaatu's original battle is just that, a mere creation myth belonging to the White Temple. But the religion itself is quite real, I assure you. Why, the witch who rose to conquer Vaatu and his army of cultists was a witch from the very same fold."

"Of the -" Asami gaped him. "Of the  _Silver House_?"

"That building has been here a very long time, I assure you. I have eleven years of research on it, cross-checking farmer's records, eye witness accounts, and tidbits of folklore and gossip passed by word of mouth. Every story mentions a cottage by the river, occupied by a family of women. So there is some truth in myth, or there is some myth in truth. Alas, I have never been able to find the name of the woman who was possessed by Raava in the original tale. Perhaps she never really existed. Perhaps she is yet to exist."

The book fell from her grip, skidding across the floor.

"Oops, sorry!" Asami's voice cracked as she spoke, sounding unnaturally high-pitched and breathless. She quickly bent to pick the book up. "My hand slipped. Your story - it spooked me, I guess."

"It's Vaatu's eyes, I'm telling you." Zei had also bent down when Asami dropped the book, and when she retrieved it from under the bookshelf to hand it back to him, he cradled it to his chest like it was his first born child. Then he looked up, his eyes suddenly widening at the expression on Asami's face. "Goodness, are you alright? You look like you've seen a –"

( _incy wincy spider_ )

"A ghost," he finished.

Asami stared at the book in his arms; for a split second she was certain, _certain_ she could see Vaatu's red eyes burning through the back cover, following her every move. Her mouth was dry and smooth as glass, her flesh cold, prickling, her heart wedged in her throat, as heavy as a golf ball. _Don't look at the lights,_ she thought suddenly. _Don't look at the lights, Asami, you'll go blind._

"It's called 'Oranges and Lemons'," she murmured.

"I beg your pardon?"

" 'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head'," Asami continued; the words tumbled out of her mouth in a shaky, uneven rush, spoken low as if she were talking in her sleep. "It's from a nursery rhyme called 'Oranges and Lemons'. Two kids form an arch with their hands, and you have to run through it before they sing the final lines of the rhyme. Only I didn't have anyone to play it with, so I pretended – mother said I couldn't go into the vines – but I still..."

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers very hard, straining to remember; it suddenly seemed of utmost importance that she remembered. _Remember what, Asami?_ a tiny voice in the back of her brain spoke up. _What did you do?_

And then she spoke again, without any foreknowledge she was going to speak; her mouth moved separately from the control of her brain: "Mother said I couldn't go into the vines. Mother said they were dangerous. Said there were things that – things that –"

(will kill the sun maybe it will kill the whole world)

"I'm sorry," she said again. She was faintly aware that her face was running with sweat, the back of her dress plastered to her skin. "I was thinking out loud – the book just reminded me of –"

She drifted off, realising that she actually had _no_ idea what exactly Wan's drawings reminded her of. Already the details were escaping through the cracks, like when you were sitting in bed and you could feel yourself slowly going to sleep; you struggled to keep your eyes open but everything was fading, fading into darkness...

"Maybe you should sit down," said Professor Zei hesitantly. "Forgive me if this is impolite to say, but you don't look very well."

"Oh, it's just the heat. It makes me a little dizzy."

"I don't blame you. It's been one of the hottest summers of the decade so far. Would you like some water?"

"No. Thank you, but no." What she really wanted was to get the hell out of there and find Korra, and put as much distance between herself and Vaatu's red eyes. "I really have to go. Thanks for telling me more about the history of the vines."

"Not a problem." Zei peered at her closely, frowning. "Say, have you ever read _The Great God Pan_ , by Arthur Machen?"

Asami shook her head.

"It's the most terrifying story ever written," he said. "In it, one of the characters talks about how this world is 'glamour and vision', and the real world lies beyond a veil. Lifting the veil means seeing the great god Pan; it means throwing open the 'house of life', so to speak, allowing to enter that for which we have no name, that which is so awful, so secret that it cannot be named or spoken, the everlasting darkness that dwells beyond this world of dreams."

He put a hand on her shoulder, suddenly looking very somber.

"I should warn you, it is not wise to go searching for the White Temple. There are many strange stories of people trying, and never being seen again. I'm sure you've heard about those tourists who disappeared years ago – it is easy to come up with a rational explanation for such things, but it's _harder_  to accept that sometimes there is simply _no_ rational explanation for why and how it happened. The vines protect themselves, and I, for one, am of the belief that there is a grain of truth in certain superstitions."

She forced her face into a smile. "Don't worry, we're only going camping for one night. We'll be back tomorrow morning."

"I see." Zei visibly relaxed and returned her uncertain smile; his teeth clashed shockingly white and even and perfect-looking against the rest of his appearance, which gave off an impression of distinct neglect. "If you have any more questions about the history of the vines, you are most welcome to visit any time."

"I will."

And with that, Asami fled the shack, and she did not look back until she was well outside. Unfortunately, while she _would_ visit the tourist centre again, that day, I am very sorry to say, was the first and last day she would ever speak to Professor Zei. By the time she eventually returned with the other girls, he would be dead.

*

Outside, Asami sat on the edge of the pier, holding her head in her hands. She pressed her palms against the surface of her eyelids until tiny painful sparks burst in the corners of her eyes. _Remember,_ she told herself. _You must remember._

She gasped as the image struck her out of nowhere, filling her mind like a bolt of lightning flashing mercilessly through a night sky, illuminating everything in hideous clarity:

 _Red eyes, like flaming headlights_ _… a twisted brown root for a face that was boiling and melting, the flesh falling from the skull in great strips … black smoke seeping through the gaps, spreading in a colossal shroud, while the body, free of its parasitic host, collapsed like a piece of fruit left out in the sun to rot … immense tentacles twist_ _ed_ _in the darkness, tentacles and teeth as sharp and curved as vampire fangs, frozen in a horrible leer …_ _and in the centre, a single bleeding eye, floating like a dead, mutated jellyfish on the surface of a dark ocean at night … she turned and ran, stumbling and slipping up the riverbank, but the smoke was everywhere; it gushed from the tall man's mouth as he opened wide, and everything it touched – the grass, the trees, the wildflowers – withered and died…_

"The tall man," she whispered. Was it a memory? A hallucination? A dream? Her mother had told her not to go into the forest. There were worse things in the vines than snakes and poison ivy. But Asami hadn't listened to her. Asami had –

_What?_

But she couldn't remember. With a moan of frustration, she dragged her fists through her hair, pushing it off her face. "It's not real," she said out loud. Her voice came out as quiet and frightened, the squeak of a mouse. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and tried to speak louder. "It's not real. It was just a picture."

She swallowed, feeling dangerously close to vomiting. Then the light changed – the clouds above her head suddenly unraveled, startling her with a shaft of bright sunlight. The sunbeams bounced off the surface of the river, making the water look impossibly green and clear. Asami looked up, right at the statue of Raava. She thought at first that the stone itself was shining, glowing from within – then she realised that the shimmer cascading up and down the statue's face was also from the rays of the afternoon sun striking at the hard white surface, sending double rainbows leaping out above it, each colour blazing and distinct. "Be brave," she said to herself. "You must be brave." This time her voice was stronger, much closer to its normal pitch. Almost immediately, she felt something start to lift from her heart.

"What's up, nerd?"

Asami looked around to see Korra stepping off the pier, tucking her phone back into her bra. "Where did you disappear off to?"

"Oh, around," said Korra mysteriously. She hopped down beside Asami, and jabbed her thumb back at the tourist information centre. "Well? Zei's pretty zany, huh? No wonder he and Opal are such good friends, they're just as weird as each other."

Asami did not answer at once. "Did he really discover the weight of the human soul?"

"Yeah, apparently. If you Google his name, you can read all his academic papers. It's – well, no wonder he got fired from his job. His experiments were hardly legal." Korra leaned back onto the boardwalk, exposing her neck and cleavage to the sun. "You gotta think about what kind of person is willing to weigh dying humans for the purposes of science. Guy's not quite right in the head."

"He's definitely odd. Harmless, though." Asami bit her lower lip. "Korra, can I ask you a weird question? Are you – religious?"

Korra cocked one eyebrow at her in surprise. "Er, where did this come from?"

"Zei told me more about Raava, and Vaatu, the Two-Faced God. And how a witch battled Vaatu with Raava possessing her." She said all this very casually, but she watched Korra's face closely, monitoring her reaction. "Zei told me this was the ultimate goal for the witches - to become one with their goddess. 'Two sides of the same coin', like Raava and Vaatu themselves. I just thought - Opal said Katara still pays tribute to Raava here in the vines. Do you?"

Korra blew air between her teeth. "I dunno," she said. "When you're a kid, you believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and all that - but then you grow up, and you realise that they were just stories your parents told you to help you sleep at night. For me, religion is kind of like that - just another story we tell ourselves. A lot of stuff's happened to me that's made me wonder if there was even a Mother at all, and - well, I told you what happened. My parents died, and all I could ask was, _why me_?"

Asami nodded. She knew all too well what that felt like, the hopelessness that came from being alone; that question, _why me_ , was a perfect summary of her last eight years of schooling. "So you're an atheist?"

Korra gazed out across the water at the Raava statue, swinging her legs back and forth, looking restless, uncomfortable.  
  
"I lost my faith," she said at last. "It's all just a story, you know? A story that goes against everything, everything we know about time, space, all of existence, but we still  _want_ to believe it anyway, 'cos it's the only way we can deal with all the shitty stuff that happens in the world." She sighed and pushed her feet up underneath her backside, turning to face Asami. "Look, whatever Zei told you, don't let it make you think that Raava was this heavenly angelic spirit of benevolent goodness. The witches are all gone now – but it wasn't Vaatu that killed them. It was people. Sure, some of them _may_  members of the Order of the Black Goat, but most were just people who hated women. You ever heard of a guy called Heinrich Kramer?"

"No."

"We learnt about him in history class," said Korra. "Basically he was an old German dude who wrote this book called the _Malleus Maleficarum._ In English, it means 'The Hammer of the Witches'."

Unease stirred in Asami at the name; it sounded ugly, she thought. Like something indecent, crude. Perhaps Korra saw something of her distaste on her face, because when she spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically grim.

"It's - it's basically hate speech. It says that women were more likely to sell their souls to the devil, because they were evil as a result of nature, and had less faith in Christ than men, and that's why they should be persecuted by the law as witches."

"That's horrible," said Asami.

Korra nodded. "The 1400s were a good time for guys like Kramer. Europe was mad with witch hysteria, people were dying from the Black Death, and everyone and their son was turning to Christianity, desperate for salvation. The  _Malleus Malificerum_ didn't get the traction that Kramer hoped it would, but its ideas were already circulating through the population thanks to the church. Old women, single women, outspoken women, were taken from their homes and burned in their hundreds. And Raava … she didn't do a single damn thing about it. I mean, burning to death – that's a pretty fucking awful way to go. You know it took Joan of Arc two hours to die on the stake?"  
  
She shuddered and interlaced her fingers together, cracking all the bones in her knuckles; she looked like a girl who was angry enough to punch something, but had no outlet.

"I've always wondered, if these gods are so powerful, so almighty, then why do they let shit like that happen in the world? Why are there natural disasters, why do people shoot up movie theatres, why is there so much pointless death and violence? If Raava gave her gift of magic to the women who lived here, why did she just _let_ them burn?"

"I don't know," said Asami. "I'm sorry, Korra, I -"

Korra shook her head. "No apologies, remember?" she said, in a gentler tone. "If anything, _I_ should be saying sorry. I get really worked up about this. Those women that died ... they were women like you and me, you know. Innocents."

"If you say so." Asami stared at her, wary, unsure; she was certain that she'd made Korra mad, and didn't know whether Korra was just saying that to make her feel better or because she didn't want to have an argument. 

"We should get going." Korra gazed up at the sky, as if trying to sense more rain coming. "There's one more place I wanna take you before we set up camp. Do you like blackberries?"

She suddenly held out her hand to Asami, who felt her distrust melt away at once. Korra was not her father; she was not the other kids at school, either.

"I have nothing against them," she said, and put her hand in Korra's, letting the other girl hoist her to her feet. "What do you have in mind?"

"I gotta wash this eel down with something sweet," said Korra, patting her belly. She was walking backwards while facing Asami, her face lit up in excitement as she talked. "There's a blackberry farm up about forty minutes down the boardwalk. You can pick a whole bucket for only a couple of dollars! And the buckets are really big, too –"

They climbed back onto the main pier together, Korra still telling Asami all about the native blackberries that grew in the hills not very far from there. She only stopped talking when they reached the market, when she rummaged in Asami's backpack for her wallet and then darted over to one of the stalls. Three seconds later she returned, carrying two of the  _I Went To The Spirit Vines And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt_  T-shirts. Buying one was part of the 'authentic' tourist experience, she explained as she pulled one of the shirts over her head and gave the other to Asami. They took a few photos together wearing the T-shirts, first with Yasuko's camera then with Korra's phone, the latter of which she sent to Opal via Snapchat.

It was at this point that Asami remembered she'd promised her mother to get as many photos of the scenery as she possibly could with the DSLR. While Korra chatted and joked with the group of fishermen, Asami aimed Yasuko's camera towards the water. The mountains rose behind the Raava statue like spines growing along the back of a colossal sleeping animal, a savage wilderness full of snakes and mosquitoes, vines and secrets. She took a quick photo, making sure to capture both Raava and the mountain range, then went back to double-check how it had come out. The forest looked darker through the lens, and the longer Asami looked at the photo, the younger she felt – like she was nine again, listening to her mother's warnings about the dangers that lay within the trees, to wear her jacket every time she went outside just in case she got cold and to make sure, to _always_ make sure, that she returned before sundown, because while the forest was lovely and deep, it was also a dark, tangled corridor of vines thicker than her whole body, where anything might live. Anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obviously this fic is not at all historically accurate, but heinrich kramer was a real person and the malleus maleficarum is a real book. you can read more about them both [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum)
> 
> Arthur Machen is one of the founding fathers of cosmic horror, and his tale _The Great God Pan_ actually inspired many of Lovecraft's "eldritch abominations". In Greek mythology, Pan is a woodland deity, with the legs, hindquarters, and horns of a goat - you will recall that one of Wan's names for Vaatu was the "Black Goat of the Woods". The goat, of course, is also a widely recognised symbol for Satan. Food for thought.


	13. Seperate

Unsurprisingly: Korra was the captain of the lacrosse team as well as the rowing team at Sacred Heart Girls' Academy, and she was also the school's star track runner.

Surprisingly: Korra was a great lover of literature. It was her favourite class, and the woman who taught it was someone she looked up to with great reverence, because Mrs. Lang was a film buff as well as a literature buff, and sometimes Korra visited her office just to talk about books and movies with her throughout her whole lunch break. While she could quote his more famous lines, Robert Frost was not quite her favourite poet – her favourites were more the 19th and 20th century female writers, like Silvia Plath, Anais Nin, Audre Lorde, Virginia Wolfe. Asami thought it was fascinating, and wonderful, that Korra could dissect literature and films so thoughtfully and intelligently – but when she told Korra this, Korra only shrugged again.

"I'm really not that smart. Trust me, I'm not. I get bad grades all the time. I've nearly been expelled twice. The headmistress, Ms. Shen, hates my guts."

"But you got into Sacred Heart on a scholarship, didn't you? So you _are_ smart," Asami insisted.

Korra suddenly seemed very interested in a blackberry bramble that had become ensnared on her sleeve. "Yeah, I got lucky, I guess."

Asami rolled her eyes. "Oh, come _on._ I know you're a lot smarter than you put on, Korra. Give yourself some credit."

Korra looked up at her then, and her smile became teasing and enigmatic. "Maybe I am smart," she said, pulling the bramble out of her shirt and tossing it back into the grass, "Maybe I just like playing pretend. Who knows?"

"School's not a game, Korra. It would be a terrible waste if you actually got yourself expelled. And what would Katara think of that?"

"Oh, she's told me multiple times that I have to graduate, or else." Korra flashed a peal of laughter; then her gaze seemed to darken. "And that's the catch – I don't _have_ to get good grades, not really. Sure, I've come close to being expelled before – too close, you'd say – but mostly I toe the line. I owe Katara that much."

"Just barely scraping by, huh?" Asami shook her head in disapproval. "You could do better, Korra. You _know_ you could get full marks if you wanted to –"

"Of course I can," said Korra unashamedly. "But to be honest with you, I – I don't even know what I'm going to do when I finish. Everyone has all these big dreams for their futures – Kuvira wants to be a diplomat, Opal's going to be a writer, and Jinora's _already_ got an assistant job at the school library – it feels like I'm the only one without a plan. And I'm kind of freaking out about it."

"You'll get there," said Asami. "I'm kind of the same, actually. Hiroshi wants me to work with him at the company. He has it all planned out for me. But I don't know if that's what _I_ want, you know?"

"Yeah," Korra agreed. "Real talk: all I can see myself doing when I'm older is adopting stray dogs. I wanna live in this house by the beach and raise a whole colony of dogs. It'll be like an animal shelter of sorts. I'll be a crazy dog lady and nothing else."

"That sounds amazing," said Asami. "If I don't get the proper marks to graduate and Hiroshi disowns me, do you think I can come live with you at your animal shelter?"

"Of course!" Korra paused, then gave Asami a funny searching look. "Do you have a good relationship with your dad?"

Asami was slightly taken aback by the question. "Um, why do you ask?"

"I don't know." Korra rubbed the back of her neck again, suddenly sheepish. "You just never seem to call him 'Dad', is all. It's always 'Hiroshi' when you talk about him."

"That's – perceptive of you. Wow. I didn't know I said it that much."

"You say it as much as you say sorry," said Korra honestly. "I mean, if you don't want to talk about it – I guess it is kind of an intrusive question –"

"It's not that," said Asami quickly. "I'd like to talk about it. With you. But it's complicated. Maybe – maybe ask me that question again later, okay?"

"Okay, deal. Can I ask you something else in the meantime?"

"Shoot."

That was how their visit to the berry farm went – a game of questions and answers. Asami didn't mind – it was the first time she talked that much in her whole life. (She laughed, too – she would catch herself doing it, like it came as a surprise to her, and she would think, _why are my cheeks hurting so much_? But it was a _good_ ache – she had to keep telling herself that). This late into the day they had the entire orchid to themselves, and they weaved in between the blackberry thickets, taking care to avoid the sharp thorns that hunted for their eyes, plucking the berries from the leaves until their wrists hurt from holding their overflowing pails and their fingertips were sticky with juice. Korra asked Asami questions and Asami answered – then she asked Korra the same in return. They learned things about each other that came as absolutely no surprise and other things they never could have expected or guessed.

Unsurprisingly: Korra had nearly nine piercings, most of which she'd done herself.

Surprisingly: While her parents had been born in Japan, Asami had been born and raised in Republic City. As a result she had difficulty with the spoken language at home, less so with writing it.

Unsurprisingly: Asami was ambidextrous, like her mother. And also like her mother, she was creative. She told Korra about how she would draw so often when she was younger that there was constantly spots of ink on her arms and whenever the family would eat out, she would steal all the napkins from the table and use them as miniature canvases.

"What do you like to draw?" Korra demanded. "Still lifes? Flowers? That sunset in your room was pretty nice. Do you prefer graphite or paint?"

"Whoa, one question at a time," Asami said with a laugh. "I like using plain old pencil and eraser most of the time. My mom's better with colours. I'm better at –" she gesticulated wildly with her hands, "– _forms._ I take things apart to understand them but that's not enough – it's like, I have to visualise it in my head and recreate it with my hand to really understand how it works. Most of the time it's not even about understanding – it's about executing an idea. I love that part the most – thinking of an idea and then drawing it, creating it, watching it leap off the page – it's – it's –” She suddenly smiled to herself, her cheeks glowing with a kind of embarrassed pride as she spoke. "I guess you could say its pretty wonderful."

"And I can't even draw a stick figure," Korra said admiringly. "Do you have a sketchbook that you draw in? Can I see?"

Asami went very quiet then; her eyebrows knitted together, and Korra realised immediately that it was the wrong question to ask.

"Sorry! You don't have to –"

"I have a sketchbook," Asami spoke over her. "It's in my bag, actually. But it's more personal than that."

"It's okay," Korra said awkwardly. "You don't have to show me, really."

"I'll show you," Asami said. "I mean, one day I'd like to draw _you_ , if you don't mind –"

Korra threw back her head and guffawed. "You want me to model for you? You want to draw me like one of your French girls, Jack?"

Asami just stared blankly at her, not understanding; Korra's mouth fell open.

"Oh God, please tell me you've seen _Titanic._ "

"I am notoriously bad with pop culture references," Asami admitted apologetically.

"But it's _Titanic_! It's Leo when he was still cute! Kate Winslet when she was still a red head! James Cameron when he still made decent films! How can you _not_ have seen it?!"

Asami only shrugged, an answer Korra found deeply unsatisfactory, and almost offensive.

"That's it," she declared. "As soon as we're getting home, we're watching _Titanic_ in the dorm. You're not allowed to say no."

Around and around their game of twenty questions went, and by the time they retired from the heat, their buckets laden with sweet-smelling, overripe berries, even Korra was too exhausted to talk any more. They sat on a small rise overlooking the blackberry brambles, watching the sun droop lazily in the sky, like a slowly shutting eye. It wasn't awkward or uncomfortable, the silence; the morning and afternoon had been filled with talk and laughter and the endless meandering conversation of teenage girls. Now they were hot and sweaty and thirsty from their labor; now the peace and beauty of this tiny corner of the world was enough to fill the both of them. The thought was a comforting one.

*

"Almost there," Korra said. "Just past this ditch –"

The two girls walked side-by-side down a secluded country lane. On their right, trees very similar to the ones lining the driveway of the Silver House stood, casting dappled shadows onto their heads. The boardwalk had disappeared some time ago. Indeed, Asami had never been to this part of the forest in all her years of staying in the Silver House; she suspected Korra had taken her further than even her mother had.  
  
The river was a distant silver snake in the valley behind them. Everything was quiet except for the sound of birdsong in the trees. To their right ran a deep, muddy-looking ditch. Long ago, someone had built a wire fence separating the ditch from the main path, perhaps to keep out foxes; this fence had fallen apart in the years since, and only the wooden pickets remained, protruding upright from the overgrown tangles of juniper and witchgrass like exclamation marks. Korra shoved one roughly aside and jumped down into the ditch, scrambling up the opposite bank on her hands and knees. Standing up, she said, "Throw me the bag," and Asami thought her voice sounded strangely distant and echoed, as if she was speaking to her from the end of a very long tunnel. She pulled the backpack off her aching shoulders and tossed it across the gap; Korra caught it with one hand and threw it over her shoulder. "Come on," she called, "It's not much further!"

Asami's first thought when she stepped into the ditch was that the sun had gone behind the clouds, which was why it suddenly seemed darker. Then she looked up and saw the light still filtering through the bracken – only it seemed to have a grey, distilled quality to it, like someone had slapped a blue-toned filter over her eyes. Her sneakers sank into soft, almost moist earth and her eardrums popped.

"Is it just me, or did it suddenly get colder?"

"It's like that over this side of the river," Korra said. "The air is – different. It's like a pocket of time and space that's not really effected by the outside world. That's why I like coming here. It's – separate."

That was the perfect word to describe it, Asami thought. She pushed herself over the other side of the ditch, her sneakers kicking and pushing against mounds of dead leaves. Almost immediately, the flesh on her arms broke out in goosebumps. The birds had stopped singing; Asami looked up, up at the sky, and saw that it was almost completely blotted out by the trees – they grew closer together here, their trunks all bent and twisted out of shape and their knotted branches touching almost conspiratorially, as if they had stopped talking to one another just before she and Korra had walked into their midst. Asami opened her mouth – and she could _taste_ it on her tongue, a weird tingling that began in her arms and spread to all her senses. _Separate. A pocket of time and space._

"You alright?" Korra had drawn closer to her, looking concerned.

Asami's head snapped around. "Yeah," she said, clearing her throat. "Just thinking about what you said. It's quiet here. Almost –"

" _Too_ quiet?" Korra waggled her eyebrows.

"Yes. And no." Asami rubbed her arms anxiously with her hands. "It doesn't feel like we're in the spirit vines anymore. It doesn't even feel like we're on the same _planet_."  _Like we've stepped through a door,_ she almost said, but she stopped herself at the last moment, because those unspoken words made her feel cold and scared.

Korra seemed to read her mind. "Are you afraid?"

Asami bristled at her. " _No._ Why would I be afraid?"

"I just thought – nothing." Korra sighed and turned away. "You're the first person I've showed this place to," she continued, in a softer voice. "Not even Katara knows I come here. Every time I feel like running away, this is where I go instead. It helps ground me a little, when I – when I get like that."

There was a pause. Asami's eardrums continued to spark and pop; it just occurred to her that there was no movement, no sign of life whatsoever on the other side of the ditch. She could feel the wind lifting her hair from her neck, but the trees did not creak or bow to it; no animals rustled in the undergrowth, and even her shoes slipped over the ground in complete silence, as if she was walking on ice instead of a forest floor made from moss and broken branches and plants and rock. The quiet and the weird half-darkness caused by the patchwork quilt of leaves over their heads was complete, almost womb-like.

"Let's keep going, before the light fails," Korra said.

They continued walking, and the trees seemed to close in behind them, erasing any sign that they were there in the first place. Asami kept looking back behind her, thinking that if Korra was not with her, she would have been helplessly lost otherwise; the path that Korra was cutting through the woods seemed entirely random. Then, abruptly, Korra stopped, brushing a large fern aside, and Asami, who hadn't been paying attention, walked right into her.

"Oh!"

Asami stood stock still, standing in the spot where Korra held the ferns apart like a feathery veil, staring at the scene ahead … a scene that could only exist in in a child's book of fairy tales.

Beyond the barrier of ferns, a stream gushed merrily from a crevice between the rocks, rushing down, down, forming a thin sheet of water over the rugged cliff face. Gigantic ferns grew on either side of it, their fronds so large and heavy that they dipped beneath the surface of the pool, rippling like strands of green hair. The water beneath the waterfall was smooth as glass, and so clear that Asami could see right to the bottom from where she was standing; yet she thought the water had the same dark, secretive quality about it as well. In her mind's eye she was reminded distinctly of the mermaid lagoon from _Peter Pan._ The water certainly looked deep enough to contain mermaids, she thought, childishly. Or crocodiles.

With a start, she realised Korra was pulling her top over her head. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?" Korra kicked off her sandals and slipped her skirt down over her hips, revealing dark, sculpted legs. Asami suddenly found it very difficult to swallow; _how_ Korra could be so blithe about her nakedness, she could not understand - anyone could be watching them out here, anyone. "Come on, 'Sams, you could use a nice swim after being in the hot sun all day."

"But – but I don't have any of my swimming things – or a towel –"

Korra laughed. "You won't need a towel, the water's really warm. Come and see for yourself."

She held out her hand to Asami, who backed away from her, nearly tripping her own feet. Korra was basically naked now apart from her bra and undies, and while Asami had seen it all before, she had been very drunk. Sobriety cast the situation in a new and mortifying light: Asami could feel her face burning up like someone had lit a fire underneath her cheekbones.

"N-no, thankyou," she mumbled, staring resolutely at her feet. "No, I think I'll just stay right here."

"Suit yourself," Korra said with a shrug. In real life, the _click_ that accompanied Korra's unclipping of her bra was hardly discernible over the rush of the waterfall, but in Asami's brain, it cracked the air as loud as a gunshot; she watched through her eyelashes as the bra fell, with idiotic movie-picture slowness, from Korra's hand and onto the ground. "Don't steal my clothes, alright?"

"Wait, Korra, don't –"

A tremendous splash cut her off, and Asami was doused in a shower of water as Korra plunged into the pool. Despite her embarrassment, she found herself rushing to the water's edge, watching the surface anxiously for any sign that Korra was going to come back up. The water over this side of the stream was as clear as day, but on the other side, where the waterfall churned and roared over the rocks, the water was almost black, obscured by a thick layer of dark green algae. Seconds ticked by; Asami's fingers clutched hard at the hem of her dress, staring hard into the depths of the stream, looking for a tell-tale trail of bubbles, or perhaps the flash of her blue eyes, her quicksilver smile … yet Korra did not resurface.

"Korra?" Asami called, hesitantly. She leaned over the pool, her long hair falling down her chest. Her own nervous, pale face reflected back at her, oddly distorted by the movement of the stream. She couldn't see Korra anywhere. How many minutes had it been? Four? Five? Asami did not see how anyone, even Korra, could hold their breath for that long...

"BOO!"

Asami leapt back with a startled cry as Korra suddenly came bursting out of the pool, water gushing down her naked body in rivulets, her hair slicked flat onto her skull. The force of her exit sent huge waves of water streaming over the rocks, and she skidded away from the deluge as fast as she could on her hands and knees, her heart nearly beating outside her chest.

"That wasn't funny, Korra!" she shouted angrily. "I thought you were –"

"What, drowned?" Korra cracked a wicked grin. "Come on, Asami, I fell out of your window this morning – you know it takes more than that to kill me."

"Yeah, well," Asami said, glowering at her. "It still wasn't funny. How do you know there's not – there's not crocodiles or piranhas in there or something?"

"Because crocodiles and piranhas aren't native here, silly," Korra said in an infuriatingly patronising tone. "We're basically up in the mountains, see."

"We're – we're in the mountains?" Asami faltered, gaping at her. "But when did we—? The _path_ –"

"Yeah, see, it's funny like that," Korra said; she'd stopped smiling. "It's like, the further away from civilisation you get, the more you lose track of where you are. Time's not the same out here, people get lost in the vines … and it might seem like the path you're walking on goes straight ahead, but then it changes, and time – time and space _melts_ , goes funny, and then you find that instead of forwards, you're going diagonal or backwards or topsy turvy or off the end of the world altogether..."

Asami shivered. "Don't talk like that," she murmured. "I don't like it – the way you all talk about the vines…"

She broke off, her half-hearted sentence disintegrating in her mouth; Korra was looking at her with an oddly intent expression on her face, either unaware or not caring that she was giving Asami a full-frontal view of her nakedness as she did so. ( _I'm not looking,_ Asami told herself wildly, _not at the way the water slides down her breasts and the muscles of her stomach, I'm not looking, oh no, not at the way it turns her skin to liquid bronze and her eyes green, I'm just going to stare at my shoes instead and ignore the way she's looking at_ me _.)_

"We _are_ safe out here, aren't we?" she demanded suddenly. "I mean, Professor Zei said –"

"Of course we're safe! Don't you trust me, Asami?" To Asami's immense relief, Korra was sinking back into the water now, submerging her body entirely so that only her head was visible.

Asami eyed her warily. "Not one bit."

Korra gave another wicked grin. "Why, I'm offended you would say such a thing, Miss Sato!" 

She inched closer to the bank as she spoke, and Asami took a couple of steps away from the water's edge, just to be safe.

"I'm not going in the water," she said stubbornly. "You can't make me –"

"Can't I?" Korra's voice was very quiet, silky smooth; Asami knew that was more dangerous than her most wicked of grins. Korra propelled her body backwards across the lake; she moved more gracefully than she ever had on land, her limbs cutting through the water like a knife through butter. "You know I'm descended from mermaids, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

"No, seriously," Korra said earnestly. "I told you how my parents grew up in Alaska, didn't I? Well, my ancestors on my mom's side – hundreds and hundreds of years ago, this was – they came out of the sea to live on the land.  _Ondines_ , we were called. The mermaids grew legs so they could mate with human men. And when they died, or when they left their husbands to go back into the ocean, they turned into sea foam."

"You're so full of shit," Asami said.

She heard Korra's laughter echo across the stream, but when she looked up, she could know longer see her. Uneasily, she scanned the water for signs of life, but it was now so dark in the clearing that she could barely see her own hand in front of her face, let alone into the depths of the pool. Her only choice was to back away into the safety of the ferns as fast as possible, but before she had time to put this thought into motion, a strong, brown hand gripped her wrist, yanking her downwards. Asami tried to scream, and only ended up swallowing a mouthful of stream water; gasping and coughing and swearing, she floundered in the water, slipped on a rock, and fell over with a splash. Korra's mocking laughter rang in her ears, closer now.

"My dress!" Asami shrieked. "Korra – _my dress is soaked!_ How _could_ you?"

"Whoops," Korra said. She was resting contentedly on her back, watching as Asami hauled herself out of the water and lay on the grass panting and shaking. "Refreshing, though, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, really refreshing," Asami snarled at her. She pushed her wet hair off her face and tried in vain to wring the water out of the hem of her dress. "I didn't bring a change of clothes! I'm going to die of hypothermia and it's going to be all your fault, you – you –"

She screamed piercingly; Korra had flung a huge clump of water weeds in her face. Enraged, Asami jumped back into the stream, the state of her clothes be damned – wading over to wear Korra floated grinning that shit-eating grin, and dunked her head roughly under the water. What followed was fifteen minutes of frantic splashing and screaming as each girl tried to outdo each other in an all-out water fight. To Asami's surprise, the stream _was_ warm – almost tropical – so that by the time they retired to the riverbank, breathless with laughter and dripping on the rocks like two creatures from the Black Lagoon, it was well after dark.

"Korra," Asami said quietly. They sat facing one another around a small campfire Korra had built from broken twigs and leaves, under a yellow sickle moon. Korra was gazing intently into the flames as if trying to memorise them; her hair was plastered lank and messy to her neck and she had, thankfully, put all her clothes back on. She appeared to be quite lost in thought, but when Asami said her name again, she gave a start and glanced upwards, as if coming out of a deep sleep. "Are you alright?"

Korra snorted. " _No._ I don't even like camping. The scenery is crap, and the company is even worse."

She smiled to show Asami that she was joking. Asami smiled back.

"It's really lovely here. Peaceful." The fire was blazing hot and Asami was a little too close to it; she maneuvered her body around so that she was gazing at the trees and warming the skin on her back instead.

Korra nodded in agreement. "Thanks for coming with me today," she said. "Even if I did ruin your only change of clothes."

Asami shrugged as she looked down at her dress, which was already mostly dry thanks to the heat of their little fire. "No regrets," she said. "Thank you for inviting me."

Korra stood up. "I'm going to gather more wood," she announced, and disappeared into the darkness.

Asami heard a series of dry snaps and crackling sounds as Korra began breaking the branches off dead trees. She stared at the faceless grey trunks that stood beyond the ferns, around the perimeter of the stream; it was so dark tonight that she couldn't see the tops of them. As a child she had always scared herself with thoughts that those tree trunks looked like the legs of giants. Giants, camouflaged perfectly by the leaves that grew from the uppermost branches. It was hard to not think of such things again, when you were in a strange, foreign wilderness such as this, where the leaping flames of a bonfire seemed almost pagan.

It was odd, Asami thought suddenly, that the grove they'd gone through to get here had been as silent as the grave, but here, around the stream, she could hear almost everything … the creak and sway of the mighty boughs some twenty feet above her head, the soft chuckling of the waterfall, the occasional pop and hiss as a pine knot in the fire burst open from the heat, Korra crashing around in the dark, whistling as she collected a neat pile of firewood in her arms … and there were other living things creeping in the undergrowth too, the stealthy slidings of invisible forest creatures drawn by their magic circle of light, perhaps…

"Do you smoke?" Korra dumped a huge log on top of the fire, causing a shower of sparks to fly upwards, and threw herself down next to Asami.

"I don't, no."

"You ever tried?"

"Tried what?"

"You know." Korra dangled a clear plastic baggy in front of her face, filled with some green plant-looking stuff.

"Where did you get that?"

"There's a bunch of hippies who set up camp on the pier everyday. They call themselves witches but they're really just college drop outs from out of town. They sold it to me while you were talking to Professor Zei."

"If Katara finds out –"

"You know what Katara puts in that pipe of hers, don't you?" Korra gestured with the bag. "She smokes it for the pain in her leg. Just ask her, she'll tell you."

"You  _are_ full of shit!" Asami said, slapping the bag away. 

"Marijuana's not like tobacco, Asami, it's all natural, it comes from the Earth. People smoke it for all sorts of reasons, and not just to get high."

"I don't know." Her dress now quite dry, Asami flopped on her back, turning her face up to the sky. It was a strangely cloudy night; either that, or the tree tops were so dense she could not see the stars.

"I do. _I_ know there's a first time for everything." Korra's face appeared above her own, grinning broadly around the rolled cigarette lolling between her teeth. "And I know I'm going to take all your firsts, Asami Sato. I've already got your first time drinking, your first hangover, your first seance –"

"God, that stinks," Asami said, waving a hand at the billowing smoke now engulfing her. Korra looked way too good with a cigarette between her teeth, she thought grimly. Smoking suited her. She hated cigarettes, but Korra somehow made them look impossibly glamorous. 

"Live a little." With practised ease, Korra removed the joint from her lips and blew smoke into the air; Asami watched it mingle and disappear into the smoke of the fire. Korra held out the joint to her, and Asami looked at her fingers; she knew the youthful strength contained in those bundles of sinew and muscle and cartilage, knew the feel of Korra's pulse in her thumb against her cheek, like a storm brewing under her skin, and if she closed her eyes she could trace the shape of Korra's hands in the air with her finger, callouses and bitten nails and all, the way they had felt running over her lips. She knew her father's hands off by heart, too; her father's hands were yellow and nicotine-stained and hairy, and they gesticulated ferociously over his head whenever he was on the phone with a particularly bothersome client. Other times, his hands would briefly rest on her shoulders when he got home from work, as if they were checking that she was still there, that she was real, his daughter ... he tried to hide the smell with cologne, but Asami knew he smoked because she'd found the cigarettes in the mahogany desk in his study, the glove compartment in his car, the very top drawer in the pantry, the hidey-hole underneath his work bench in the garage, she knew all his hiding spots, just as well as she knew the sight of his yellow, nicotine-stained hands … but no matter how many times she felt his hands on her shoulders, she never saw him smile at her. 

"Hiroshi smokes over a pack a day," she said. "He – he used to smoke only one or two, and when he was first going out with my mom it was only a social thing apparently. But then he got more and more stressed about work, and it became the only thing that could calm him down – but it's like a double-edged sword, now it's like he's not happy unless he's got a cigarette –"

She stared into the fire, but surprisingly, did not cry; how many times had she cried since leaving Republic City? Too many to count. But where her father was concerned, she had no tears to shed. "You wanted to know why I call him Hiroshi and not dad," she went on, "it's because we don't get along that well. Obviously."

"Does he – does he hit you?" Korra sounded hesitant, almost scared, like she didn't really want to know the answer but couldn't help but ask now that Asami was willing to talk about it.

"What?" Asami looked up, startled. "No, no, of course not. Although," she added, not bothering to disguise the bitterness in her voice, "I almost wish he did. At least he would pay more attention to me, that way." She saw Korra's mouth tighten into a frown and felt a flush creep up her neck. “I know! I know it's a horrible thing to say, alright?"

Furious with herself, Asami jumped up and began to pace around the fire; she could feel Korra's eyes on the back of her head, following her every step of the way, and resisted the urge, for the millionth time that day, to acknowledge her gaze, no matter how much she wanted to. "Really, I have nothing to complain about. He spoils me, buys me anything I want, because we're one of the richest families in Republic City, I mean, I have my own _chauffeur_ , for God's sake – so I have nothing to complain about, nothing! I'm this spoiled, prissy rich girl, who owns a car and a big house and an indoor swimming pool, why should I complain? Thing is, I _know_ how privileged I am, but that doesn't make it hurt less. My mom gave birth to me in her early twenties and she gave up her career to raise me, but Hiroshi – Hiroshi _never_ stopped working. The whole time I was growing up, I had my mom and I had my nanny, and the only time I ever saw _him_ was if I stayed up past my bed time and waited until he came home. And he – he would kiss me on the head and tell me to go to bed, but it was like an afterthought, like he only just remembered that I was his daughter and that this was how you were supposed to act if you were a father – like he had a _script_ in his head but he never really believed it – he thinks it should be _enough_ that he buys me things, that he shouldn't _have_ to hold me or tell me he loves me, but it's not – it's not that easy! Why should it be easy for him?"

Behind her, another log fell onto the fire with a muffled _clunk_ , sending tongues of flame rearing high into the sky, but Asami barely noticed; she felt like something had come undone in her chest, like an overfilled dam bursting its banks. It was the second time in a few days that she'd let her anger at Hiroshi get the better of her, but it felt good – like she suddenly weighed two kilograms lighter. She took a deep gulp of air, feeling the night breeze caress her eyelids. And then, suddenly, she became acutely aware of Korra's silence; a silence that was so heavy it was almost a presence in of itself. Swinging around, she saw the other girl also on her feet, restlessly tossing handfuls of leaves into the flames.

"Really ought to vent your feelings more often, 'Sams, it sounds like you've got a lot of repressed angst trapped in that pretty head of yours."

"Sorry," Asami said glumly, automatically.

"Uh-uh-uh! That word is forbidden!" Korra's expression turned fierce. "Anyway, I don't know why you should be the one saying sorry. Your dad sounds like a total dick."

Asami said, "My mother is always quick to remind me that he only acts the way he does because it's _best for the family._ It just – it just makes me feel so _guilty_ , because I know it's true. Without dad, we'd be living in poverty like my granddad and his father. I'm – I'm a terrible daughter."

Korra's face twisted into a grimace as she snapped another branch over her knee with unnecessary force; huge splinters went spinning in all directions. "It's not your fault," she said. "You should be there for your kids. Making the family rich doesn't excuse him from that responsibility. And if he ever tries to tell you it does – if he ever tries to use it against you – well, then that's emotional manipulation, that is."

It was moments like these, Asami thought, where Korra revealed herself to be extraordinarily perceptive behind that grinning joker's mask of hers. It was all an act, a cleverly disguised magic trick; she had people eating out of her hand, looking the other way while she slipped behind them and pulled the carpet from underneath their feet. All while wearing that silly little lopsided smile that was equal parts disarming and unnerving and heartbreaking.

"Alright," she said at last. She strode over to Korra and faced her squarely, palm out. "Alright, let me take a drag. Come on, sharing is caring."

Korra's eyes widened. "But you just said –"

"It's not tobacco, so I can live with it," Asami said. She waved her hand impatiently, and Korra placed the joint between her waiting fingers. "And I guess there is no escaping that I _am_ still my father's daughter," she murmured, more to herself than anything.

"Well, yeah, I guess …" Korra rubbed at the back of her neck, suddenly looking wildly uncomfortable. "Asami, you know you don't have to –"

"I thought you wanted all my firsts?" Asami raised the joint to her lips and took a quick puff; a foul taste filled her mouth and lungs, and she immediately began to cough. Korra's motherly concern quickly dissolved into incredulous laughter.

"Jesus, 'Sams, what the fuck was that? You gotta breathe it in deep, not _sip_ at it like it's a cocktail -"

"Alright, alright, show me how its done, then!" Asami thrust the joint back into her hands. Korra grinned at her and stuck it in her mouth, exhaling twin streams of smoke through her nostrils like a dragon. "Show-off."

"It's a talent." Korra offered the joint back to her encouragingly. "Breathe in nice and deep now, go on – that's it deeper, deeper, now let it all out –"

Her eyes watering, Asami exhaled. Her lungs burned and her throat ached and her tongue tasted of ashes. Unable to hold it back any longer, she dissolved into a violent coughing fit. Korra thumped her on the back once, twice, telling her wisely that it was like riding a bike, you just had to practise, and that she took it better than Kuvira did on her first time, because Kuvira cried after like, half a drag, and if Asami told her that Korra had told her that then Kuvira would probably murder her in her sleep, so please don't, thanks.

"But you seem to be made of stronger stuff than Kuvira so I'd like so show you something," Korra continued. "It's called a blowback. It's where I blow the smoke into your mouth."

She said all this quite quickly, and for some reason, her cheeks turned pink.

"And what's that supposed to do?" 

"It's supposed to give you a bigger high that way. But if you don't want to do it –"

"I'll do it. Just tell me what I'm doing first so I don't make a fool of myself."

Korra smiled at her. "It's easy. Really –" Placing the joint back in her mouth, she leaned over and gripped Asami gently on the sides of her head, pulling her close. "You have to open your mouth as well," she instructed softly, "and breathe in when I say."

"O – okay."

Korra leaned in and Asami opened her mouth to receive the hot end of the joint. Korra exhaled and Asami took a deep breath when she nodded, taking in all the smoke that Korra passed through her. She willed herself not to cough; she could feel the smoke swirling through her chest, her ears, her eyes, the very tips of her toes, curling up in the hollow parts of her body like a stray cat: and Korra followed, leaving her own messy hand prints in the places the smoke did not touch. The moment felt excruciatingly intimate to Asami; almost more intimate than kissing. She raised her eyes and saw that Korra was looking at her again. Asami did not shy away from the touch of her gaze, star-bright in the heat of the fire. A small, teasing smile was curving on Korra's mouth, as sharp and white as an exposed knife. Her hands moved down the back of Asami's head, coming to a stop somewhere between her neck and her shoulders.

"Wow," Asami whispered.

"You alright?" breathed Korra.

"Yeah." Asami reeled away from her, flopping back down on the grass. It seemed to her that the sounds of the forest were louder than ever; she could close her eyes and listen hard, she could almost understand what it was all saying. "Is it always like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like listening to all the secrets of the universe."

Korra chuckled. "You're tripping balls, Miss Sato."

Asami did not respond; she sensed, rather than saw, Korra moving down next to her so that they were side by side, looking up at the blank expanse of black leaves and sky above, as if it were the throat of some creature descending out of the heavens to swallow them, fire and all.

"Hey, Korra."

"Hey, Asami."

"Did _you_ grow legs just so you could mate with a human male?"

"No," Korra answered, "I grew legs so I could mate with a human _female_."

"Oh, really? What's she look like?"

"Oh, she's gorgeous," boasted Korra; she moved her hands in mid-air, mimicking the hourglass shape of a woman's curves. "She's got this beautiful black hair and these bright green eyes, and her smile – she's this spoiled, prissy rich girl but she's also artistic and dorky and definitely a _huge_ nerd–"

Asami laughed. "So you admit it, you came from the sea because you fell in love with me?"

"Well … in case you haven't noticed, the human race is a bit fucked up. I wouldn't want to grow legs and wash up on land unless I had a very good reason to."

"But if you die, or if you leave, doesn't that mean you'll turn into sea foam?"

Asami turned her head and rested it on her hand, gazing at Korra intently. The bonfire threw dancing shadows across the clearing and as a result she could only see half of Korra's face; the rest was in darkness.

"No. I already told you that. I'm not leaving. I – I don't want to leave," Korra whispered. "Not when you're here, with me." She tapped the centre of her forehead and took a deep breath. "With you, up here, it's like, it's like –"

"You feel awake," Asami said; it was not a question, but a statement.

"Yeah. Yeah, I feel awake. And _don't_ repeat that to the others or they'll never shut the fuck up about it," Korra added, with a touch of her old defiance.

Asami tried to fight off the smile that was now threatening to take over her face, but resistance, she quickly discovered, was futile. "You _nerd_."

"I'm not a – stop laughing!" Korra snapped. " _You're_ the one with the nerd glasses, not me, _I_ have perfect twenty-twenty vision. I – fuck." Her face seemed to collapse in on itself. "I made it weird, didn't I? I take it all back!"

"You can't take it back. It's already been said. And I'm going to remember it, forever and ever and always." Asami paused, then reached down to where Korra's other hand was resting on the ground, in the space between their bodies. "I'm glad. Please don't turn into sea foam, Korra."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll think about it," Korra mumbled, but she let Asami take her hand all the same. Both of them tried to keep their eyes open, but they were so warm in the glow of the fire, and so full and sleepy thanks to an afternoon of roller skating and berry picking that eventually, when sleep came on a dark tide, they were drawn under her protective wing as easily as two young children. And even while Asami tossed and turned from restless dreams of red eyes watching her in the trees, and Korra of nothing at all, Asami did not let go of Korra's hand, and Korra did not pull away from her.


	14. In Which Korra Loses the Game

Korra did not dream. She remembered.

Behind the closed shutters of her eyelids, time was an endless stretch of black shoreline. She watched the circular shuffle of the waves, pushing in and pulling out. Stop. Rewind. Start over. Scattered along the shoreline were millions and millions of shells, all in different colours – glittering violet. Starry midnight blue. Forest green. Shards of black ink. The waves tumbled in to claim them, wiping the beach clean like a hand over a chalkboard.

Somehow, the same memory was always left behind.

Year: 1640-something. Month unknown. She was seventeen and as of yet unblemished by the violence and cruelty of the world. The women in her family were part of a dying race that had come from the sea; they had given themselves legs so they could mate with human men. Her mother would tell her this story while they sat together under the stars, but only if they were alone, and Korra was strictly forbidden from repeating it in front of the rest of the tribe. They were afraid, Senna said; afraid of what they didn't understand. They had forgotten the faces of the women who had come before them. Her face was haggard and grey as she spoke – she was afraid, too, Korra could tell. War was coming. The taste of it was palpable on the air: ash and blood and fire and madness.

Stop. Rewind. Start over. This had all happened before. She did not dream: behind the closed shutters of her eyelids, she was a girl riding the night surf, leaping from memory to memory, face to face, like opening door after door. Eventually, she would wash up somewhere: New York City, perhaps, where she would meet a boy with dark amber eyes and a temper to match her own; or Berlin, where she had once fallen in love with two girls at the same time. It had all happened before. Time was a shell on a beach among millions of other shells.

The only other thing that remained constant was absence: the absence of those she had come to love. She was immortal, which meant she could not die; but in not dying it also meant she would outlive her friends, her family, outlive love itself. She was as used to falling asleep beside someone as she was to waking up without them. Sometimes she wondered if the absence was Raava's punishment for all the sins of her past lives. Perhaps it was part of an ancient proverb: and Raava said, 'LET THERE BE LIGHT' – for without light there could be no dark, and without pain, there could be no love, and without death there could be no life … a lesson she would only learn through dying, again and again…

Korra opened her eyes. She shifted from unconsciousness to full awareness in under half a second, awake to the drumbeat of her own heart filling her ears and that ache, the one that always came with waking up alone. Then she realised why.

"Asami?"

She rolled over. Thin wreaths of mist were snaking their way through the gaps in the trees; the sky above was the colour of the inside of an abalone shell, pearly, shimmering, tinged with mauve. Korra guessed that it had to be around five or six o'clock in the morning. The fire had gone out sometime in the night. All was quiet and eerily still in the clearing, and Asami was nowhere to be seen.

Korra jumped to her feet and pushed aside the ferns that hid the water's edge from view. Asami was sitting on the rocks there, her toes just skimming the water.

"Hey," Korra said, sagging her shoulders in relief. "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing down here, huh?"

Asami did not seem to hear her. She bent over the water, her long black hair hiding her face in a fine curtain. She moved slowly, dreamily, her fingers stretching out to disturb the surface of the pool. Unnerved, Korra reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Asami?"

Korra felt her breath stop in her throat. She could only see two strips of white underneath Asami's eyelashes; the girl was sleepwalking. Before she could decide what to do next, Asami's eyes snapped open and her fist flew upwards.

" _Don't_!"

On instinct, Korra shifted her body to the side, blocking the would-be punch before it could strike her mouth. The hair fell back from Asami's face, and she stared at Korra and then at her own clenched fist with dawning horror.

"Oh my God," she choked. "Korra – I – I'm – _so sorry –_ "

"Bad dream?" Korra asked, giving her a weak smile.

"I –I can't remember." Asami's eyes were wide, swiveling from side to side as she shook her head back and forth; she looked almost guilty, like a child who had been discovered doing some great wrong. "I woke up and I was standing by the stream – wandered off in my sleep – bad habit –"

She suddenly laughed, an awful shrill sound that sounded more like the beginnings of a scream. Then she seized Korra by the arms, pulling her close so that their noses were almost touching and Korra could see the unshed tears swimming in her eyes and the dread that rose from her every pore.

"Take me away from the water," she whispered. " _Please_. If you don't, I'm afraid I'll – I'm afraid I'll–"

"It's okay. I got you," Korra said. She wrapped an arm around Asami's shoulders and led her back to the remains of the campfire, murmuring words of comfort as she walked. Asami's eyes remained fixed and staring, and Korra wasn't sure she even heard. In truth, the emptiness in her eyes scared her more than the sleepwalking; she had seen that look before. The day she had woken up in the Silver House, the day Katara had pulled her from the train tracks at Republic City Central, then bathed her and cut her hair, she had caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and seen that stare in the depraved creature looking back at her. It was the stare of someone living with sharp hooks locked deep in their flesh, digging deeper, drawing blood; it was, as Katara would say, the stare of someone living on hell's doorstep.

"In my bag," Asami whispered, as Korra lowered her down. "The sketchbook. Bring it to me. I need – I need –"

Korra reached across the campfire and picked up the rucksack by the back straps, tipping out the contents unceremoniously onto the ground in her haste: a black-bound A4 sized sketchbook hit the ground and lay with its pages splayed open. Korra was just about to pick it up when a sketch on the very last page caught her eye.

It was a sketch of a gigantic, mutant spider sitting atop a totem pole, surrounded by dancing figures with animal heads. The underside of the spider's belly was lumpy and swollen in places, and Korra remembered the time Kuvira had showed them that Youtube video of the snake swallowing a crocodile. Opal and Jinora had squealed in disgust, but Korra had watched in silent, horrified fascination as the crocodile's shape distorted the snake's body as it went down its gullet. The spider had not eight eyes but many  _hundreds_ of eyes, perhaps  _thousands_ , sprouting from his legs and the matted black hair on his back and even on his mouth pincers, all glaring balefully at her like they knew she was looking and they could see her, too. And, was she imagining things, or was it just Asami's sheer skill in rendering such a visceral scene, but did not those shapes distorting the spider's stomach look suspiciously like reaching hands, human mouths screaming in silent agony …?

"Did you draw this?" she asked. She did not want to believe it; everything about the picture, right down to the sycophantic, worshipful way the figures in animal masks capered around the totem pole, to the way the spider seemed to _grin_ at her behind his pincers, was obscene. Just looking at it made her stomach turn and the scars on her inner thigh ache. The thought that someone as sweet and gentle as Asami had put such a monstrosity on paper was inconceivable, horrendous.

Korra looked up and saw that Asami's face had turned a sickening milky white; she looked nearly as transparent as the morning mist that was steadily sinking into the forest floor around them. Her upper lip was pulled back over her teeth, frozen in a deathly leer as she stared down at the drawing of the spider.

"The dreams were supposed to stop," she whispered.

She held her hand out to Korra, her fingers twitching, still grinning that horrible frozen grin.

"What dreams?" Korra breathed. She didn't hand the sketchbook over.

Asami only shook her head. "Give it to me," she said again. The tone of her voice was frightening: deep and strange and almost a snarl. Before Korra could answer, she hooked her hand into a claw and swiped the sketchbook from her grip.

"Show me your hands."

Korra was bewildered. "My—?"

"Your hands, Korra, show me your hands!" Asami hissed. "Hold them out! I want to draw them!"

"Like this?" Korra flipped her palms up, spreading her fingers, so that Asami could get a good look at them. Asami reached out and gripped her right hand tightly, running a thumb over Korra's lifelines almost reverently. She nodded once in approval. There was a small snap as she removed the mechanical pencil from the spine of her sketchbook.

"Now _stay_ ," she whispered.

Asami's hand flew over the blank page like a bird, and Korra watched a likeness of her hands come to life before her eyes. Her mouth dropped open. Asami's hand dipped and soared, but her expression remained dazed and unfocused, and she wasn't even looking at the shapes her fingers were making on the page; those fingers seemed to be the only part of her that was awake, an entity moving like a puppet without strings, etching the shape of Korra's open palms, the campfire, the ferns, the trees behind them, in exquisite, breathtaking detail.

"Holy shit, Asami," she breathed. "You're a genius."

Asami looked straight ahead and said nothing. Her eyes were shining – shining, no longer with tears, but with some strange inner light that hurt to look at. _She's not here,_ Korra thought suddenly, fearfully. _Her body is, but Asami –_ _t_ _he real Asami is in a place where I can't reach her. This girl in front of me – the girl she left behind – is the Other Asami. The Dark Asami._

"When I was sixteen, I was nearly raped behind the school gym," Asami said. Her voice was flat and oddly hollow sounding, like wind through the trunk of a dead tree. Her back was ramrod straight, and she still stared at some unknown point past Korra's shoulder while her hand continued to draw in the sketchbook; the image dredged up something else in Korra's brain, a memory … a memory of Asami with her hands trapped on Opal's shot glass as it moved around the surface of an Ouija board.

"The boy who tried to do it – him and three others had made my life miserable since I was in middle school. I never had any friends, you see. I was the prissy rich girl, and they all thought I was a bit weird for some reason. Maybe deep down that was in reaction to something else, some more primal emotion they couldn't name – I think that emotion was fear. But it was a fear that made no sense – like being afraid of the dark – it was something purely instinctual, so they all dealt with it by teasing me. Which is perfectly understandable. It's not the dark that's scary – it's the things that live _inside_ the dark, the things that we can't see, because they have no shape or form, and if we did see them, they would drive us crazy. So to be honest, I don't blame them, not really. I'm a little afraid of myself sometimes as well."

Her hand moved in wild circles across the page; under the tip of the pencil, Korra saw the stream, pushing and flowing and roaring around the waterfall; saw the thin silver shapes of fish flitting in between two rocks; it was like the more she added to it, the less two-dimensional the picture became, until all these little details seemed to not only breathe, but _push_ against the thin boundary separating the sketchbook from the real world, like a baby pushing against the roof of her mother's womb.

"Well, eventually, these boys decided they'd had enough of being afraid, so they decided to do something about it. I don't think the other three meant to kill me – I think they meant to kick me around a little – but their leader, the one who started it, I could see it in his eyes. That's why he had the knife. I think that maybe he'd been planning this for a long time. Maybe ever since first grade. I don't know. All I know is, he was going to do it. He – he –"

A sudden tremor passed over her face; she paused for the briefest of seconds, her upper lip trembling. Korra reached out and did the only thing she could think of: she wrapped her arm around Asami's shoulders. Asami's gaze flickered, but she did not blink; her eyes remained fixed on a place beyond Korra's touch, a place within herself that Korra could not possibly see. _She's channeling,_ Korra realised; she was shivering, her skin having gone cold, cold all over. _That's why I thought of the Ouija board._ _Her memories, her spiritual essence, whatever it is that's behind the curtain – her soul? – she's_ _using the sketchbook as a door to bring them through, just like we used as the Ouija board as a door to talk to the spirits._ _Jesus Christ._

"He died."

Asami spoke the words so quietly that for a moment Korra thought she misheard.

"I'm sorry?"

"He died," Asami said again. "I killed him. That's why I'm here."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," Korra said, holding up her hands. "Before, you said he tried to rape you."

"Yes, he did," Asami said. "But he died before he could. And it's all my fault. My father didn't want the press to know that I was sick, so he sent me away to stay at the Silver House."

Korra still did not understand. "I think I'm missing something here. You _killed_ him? How?"

Asami's face grew very still; the silence stretched on, on, and on.

"He was stung by a bee," she said finally.

"A bee," Korra repeated. "A _bee._ You're joking, right? Asami, how can it be your fault if –"

“Because I wanted him to die,” Asami said. "And, low and behold, he did." She suddenly looked down at the picture of the stream she had drawn in the sketchbook, and a grim, unpleasant smile distorted her features, turning it into the mask of a stranger. "Be careful what you wish for, because it might just come true."

Korra felt her bewilderment mutate inexplicably into fear. She reached down and pinched the skin on her thigh, right where, nearly four hundred years ago, Unalaq had pressed his knife _._ The pain was immediate and intense, a flashing neon sign that she was not dreaming.

"Both my mother and father are afraid of me," Asami said. "I think for the same reason Vincent was afraid. My father especially. Why else would he send me away? They don't know I killed him, but they're not stupid. My father has never been able to look me in the eye. The thought of holding me in his arms, of telling me that he loves me, disgusts him to his very core."

"It was an accident," Korra said faintly. "Asami, he _was stung by a bee._ How can you blame yourself for that? It was a once in a million thing. Just a freak accident. And besides," she added, "all this talk of whose fault it was is stupid anyway, because he was going to _rape_ you! Tell me, do _really_ you think if he'd survived, that you would be the first girl he put his hands on? No! Guys like that, they're never satisfied with just one girl. So think of all the girls – and guys, maybe, I dunno – who are safer now because he's gone."

Asami looked stricken. "But he didn't deserve –"

"Didn't he?" Korra said. "The way I see it, him dying was poetic justice. Or maybe that's because I don't like making excuses for violent rapists. That's what he was, Asami. You know in your heart that if he didn't come after you, he would have gone after some other girl instead. And maybe she wouldn't have been able to escape like you did. He deserved everything he got."

Asami stared at her, the mechanical pencil dangling loosely from her fist. "I – I have to finish this," she mumbled. "One more thing."

She bent over the page; Korra couldn't see what she was doing, so she waited until Asami raised her head again before leaning over her shoulder to see.

"Damn," she said, "you made me look prettier on paper than in real life."

"Art imitates life," Asami said. "You are pretty, Korra."

She ripped the page from the sketchbook and held it up to the light. It was a drawing of a mermaid. Her skin was dark and there were flowers in her hair, which was cut short. The length of her tail disappeared into the stream. Korra looked at it and felt all the weight of her past lives and her years on the world fall from her shoulders in one go; she saw her mother's face then, and it was so clear and vivid that she thought her mother had come back to life right before her eyes, and her vision blurred and her scars sang.

"Better?" she asked. Her voice cracked a little on the last syllable.

Asami blinked and her face broke into a smile that made the dark stranger melt away instantly. Far above them, a bird began to call in the treetops. "Better," she said.

*

For Korra, the passage of time had always been a funny thing. Sometimes it seemed as though the days stretched on and on until they became the same day, over and over, for years and years, and she couldn't remember what she'd done the day before or where she'd been or what she'd eaten, only the faint, toneless thudding of her own two feet, one step, two steps, lather, rinse, repeat. On other days, time became a dark, warped corridor made from prisms and mirrors, and before she knew it the days were falling through her fingers like a line of falling dominoes, and she was helpless to halt its momentum. Before she knew it, the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a month, and then exams were upon her and Asami was leaving the Silver House to return to Republic City.

"Is that _my eyeliner_?"

Korra cursed as her fingers slipped, blotting an enormous unsightly dot across her eyelid. "You made me mess up my wing!" 

"Hey, are those my shoes?" Opal popped her head over Kuvira's shoulder.

"You said I could borrow them, remember?"

"I said you could borrow them for your little day trip with Asami, I didn't say you could borrow them forever and not give them back."

"And I _never_ said you could borrow my eyeliner," Kuvira said. She made a grab for it, but Korra jumped onto her bed, holding it high above her reach.

"Just let me get these wings perfect and I'll give it back. Promise."

Jinora stepped into the dormitory after Opal, dropping her school bag on the floor. _Korra's doing winged eyeliner? This could be interesting._

Korra swore again as she sat back down. "Don't you have anything better to do than broadcast your negative thoughts all over the place?" she retorted, glaring at JInora in the mirror. "Anything like, I don't know, a certain boy named _Kai_?"

Jinora flushed and gave her the finger. Korra promptly returned the gesture.

"Do you know how unhygienic sharing makeup is?" Kuvira said loudly. "Did you know every person has little bugs living in their eyelashes, and they keep the dust and debris from falling into our corneas? You wanna know what happens when my eye bugs meet your eye bugs?"

Korra remained unfazed. "We're practically blood related, how unhygienic can it be?"

"We're not blood related, we're a coven."

"Same diff."

"Look, we're just wondering why you're showing a sudden interest in normal girl things like makeup and nice clothes," Opal said, sitting down on the bed next to her.

"Yeah, I mean, Asami _is_ leaving today," Kuvira said, crowding in on Korra's other side. "It could just be a weird – what's the word, Opal?"

"Hmmm," Opal said, pressing a finger to her chin, "coincidence?"

"Coincidence!" Kuvira echoed, slapping Korra's knee.

Korra carefully moved her leg out of Kuvira's reach and scowled at them both. "Since when do you guys care if I show an interest in _normal girl things_?"

"Well, it is quite out of character for you," Opal said. "Seeing as you only own like one pair of shorts and wear the same sleeveless T-shirt everyday –"

"You would, if you had guns like these," Korra said, flexing her biceps and causing Kuvira to flinch like she'd been slapped and Opal to roll her eyes exasperatedly.

 _You're not wearing a sleeveless shirt today, though._ Jinora was the last to climb on the bed; there was no room next to Opal or Kuvira, so she just draped herself over Korra's shoulder, her hair tickling Korra's cheek. _You're wearing Kuvira's eyeliner, Opal's shoes and my skirt –_

"Coincidence," Korra said sharply, shoving an elbow into her ribs. "It's laundry day."

Kuvira just looked at her with a strange, intent expression; then she realised it was one of pity. "Korra," she said slowly, "you know you're being really stupid and unnecessary about this, right?"

" _You're_ stupid and unnecessary." Korra went to step off the bed; Kuvira grabbed the back of her crop top and pulled her up short.

"Asami doesn't like you because you wear eyeliner or short skirts all of a sudden."

"Who said this was about Asami?" Korra spluttered, turning a telling shade of beetroot red. Opal, Jinora, and Kuvira all exchanged significant looks.

"She's leaving today," Opal said hesitantly, "and it's pretty obvious that you're – well, you're pretty broken up about it."

"And you think you can make her stay, by doing all – this," Kuvira added, waving her hand up and down at Korra's clothes.

Korra's scowl deepened. "You don't think I can be girly or make myself look nice? Because looking nice, that's _not me_?"

"That's not what we're saying at all!" Opal exclaimed, holding up her hands.

"We're just saying that you don't need eyeliner to make Asami like you," Kuvira said. "We have a hunch – just an inkling –"

 _It's pretty damn obvious_ , Jinora chimed in.

"– that maybe, possibly, you're already there," Kuvira finished.

Korra stared at her for a moment as if she couldn't believe her ears.

"What, so I have your permission now?" she demanded. "What about going viral like a Buzzfeed article? What about protecting the _coven_? What about _don't fall in love, Korra, you'll just get your heart broken again, and again, and again_?"

"I've never tried to control your love life, I'm not your mother!" Kuvira said.

Korra gave a disbelieving snort. "But you protect your own."

Opal hesitated. "Well, that was before we got to know Asami, and everyone likes her, and these last couple of weeks with her have been really fun –"

"Yeah, and?" said Korra, her voice rising.

Spots of colour appeared on Opal's cheekbones. She glanced at Kuvira, who gave the tiniest of nods, then said in a rush, "I mean, how long has it been, fifteen, twenty years? We _know_ you're unhappy, we _know_ you've been lonely since –"

" _D_ _on't_ ," snarled Korra, "you dare use Nina against me. Did _you_ have a hand in this, by any chance?"

She aimed this question at Jinora, who shook her head rapidly. Korra stared from Kuvira to Jinora to Opal, biting her lip, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then she said slowly, "Asami is wonderful and precious and too good, too pure for all of us."

"I never said she wasn't," Kuvira said, with a touch of amusement.

"I know, but –" Korra gesticulated wildly with the eyeliner for a second, then turned back to appraise her reflection in the mirror. "She deserves better than –"

"Don't sell yourself short."

Korra's eyebrows were raised so high they looked ready to take flight. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I can be nice," protested Kuvira.

Korra's teeth continued to work at her bottom lip. There was a moment's silence. Then –

"But how do you guys _know_ she likes me? Like, how can you be _sure_?"

Kuvira and Opal again looked at each other with expressions of half-frustration, half-amusement, as if they were silently asking how oblivious one person could possibly be.

"Just a hunch," Kuvira said cheerfully. "Asami's leaving in an hour, so why don't you wash that eyeliner off, change into your best sleeveless shirt, and come see for yourself?"

Jinora wiggled her eyebrows at Korra. _Yeah, Korra, you only live once._

"Hilarious," Korra snapped.

Opal only responded by flicking her fingers lazily at Korra's hand; too late, Korra moved to dodge the blast of air that came at her from Opal's palm, and the eyeliner went whizzing out of her grip. Smiling triumphantly, Kuvira caught it.

*

The last two classes of the day were supposed to be free periods of study under the watchful eye of Headmistress Shen, but seeing as Asami was going to be gone before the day ended, even Kuvira agreed it was more important to see her off than stay for rollcall. It was probably going to bite them on the asses later, but they all knew how much it would mean to Asami, having company. She had made several casual references to the date of her departure back to Republic City over the last few weeks, but had never outright asked them to come and say goodbye; according to Opal, this was hard evidence that Asami desperately wanted to see Korra before she left, but wasn't confident enough to explicitly say so.

At two-thirty, the four of them gathered in the back of the school grounds to share a final cigarette and unchain their bikes. Korra was far too nervous to smoke and instead spent ten minutes fiddling with the padlock on her bike, her head filled with thoughts of Asami and Asami's hair and how soft it was and how lovely her teeth looked when she smiled and how her eyes lit up when she talked about something she was passionate about, like drawing and mechanics and other nerdy things. Considering she had spent the last four weeks with her head filled with similar thoughts all regarding Asami, this was nothing new; it had certainly filled the monotony a bit, overanalysing every one of her text messages, or wondering out loud of the way her hand had brushed against Korra's leg during movie night had really been accidentally on purpose, or looking up Asami's name on Facebook to see if there was evidence of past boyfriends or girlfriends (they found none). Now, though – _now_ Kuvira's words, _you're already there,_ weighed down on those thoughts with a new and terrifying context, that maybe, possibly, Asami actually really did _feel the same way._ Korra wasn't sure if she should be happy or scared shitless. She could feel herself sweating gradually through five layers of deodorant and wished she'd never let Kuvira take the eyeliner off. She wished she was drunk. She wished this was as easy as, say, picking up some random guy in a parking lot where, after fumbling in the dark for a while, he would leave her feeling sticky and vaguely dissatisfied. She just hated feeling so vulnerable.

"You're freaking the fuck out." A shadow fell over the ground in front of her; Kuvira bent and sat down on the grass where Korra was still clicking and unclicking the lock on her bike in a restless, repetitive loop.

"I'm fine. Can we leave now? Asami said she'd be gone by half past three. It's almost two-forty five."

"Relax," said Kuvira. She held out the cigarette to Korra. 

Korra shook her head. "Asami hates them. And I don't want my breath to smell when I –"

Kuvira grinned. "When you kiss her?"

"When I _hug her_ ," Korra said forcefully. "You know, when she leaves. We should all do it. Hug her, I mean."

Kuvira looked at her thoughtfully. "Nah, I reckon you should kiss her. Just lean in as she steps inside the car."

Korra was horrified. " _No!_ "

"Why not? Come on, you've been hitting on her constantly and blatantly since she first got here. Now it's crunch time – she's leaving, possibly forever, and you're telling me you're gonna wimp out?"

Korra scrunched her face up. "You know, it's not that simple. It's all fun and games while you're flirting with someone, up until you catch the – the – _feelings_  –"

She broke off, shuddering.

"Let me get this straight," Kuvira said slowly. "You _like_ Asami, you spent four weeks flirting with her, but you're so emotionally stunted that you're terrified of forming an actual attachment because that will involve _feelings_ , which you're suddenly weirdly allergic to?"

“What can I say, I'm a mess of a human being."

"I think all human beings are messes in one way or another," Kuvira said. "You're assuming that Asami is not as scared as you are. I don't think she has a lot of friends apart from us – you saw how awkward she was on the first day we met her, she was like a deer in headlights – point is, you gotta stop putting her on a pedestal, because she's not perfect, no one is. But maybe that's the meaning of life, you know? Finding someone who is their own mess, and accepts _you_ for the mess you are, so you can both be human messes together. I've said the word mess so often in the last couple of sentences that I'm not even sure it's a real word any more."

Korra was rather taken aback by this impromptu pep talk. "For someone who's strictly asexual, you sure know a lot about this stuff."

"Soulmates don't necessarily have to be sexual," said Kuvira. "I'm not saying that Asami _is_ your soulmate –"

Korra groaned and shook her head. "Nope, nope, _nooooooope._ Just stop talking. You ruined it as soon as you said the s-word."

"Kuvira, you literally have zero chill," Opal said.

"I'm just trying to help!"

"You wanna help? Get me drunk before we get to Asami's," Korra said. "I can't look her in the eye sober, I just can't. Opal, you got any of that wine left? Or the vodka, maybe?"

"I don't have any alcohol left, you and Asami drank it all after we had the seance." Opal checked her watch. "Come on. If we delay any longer, they'll leave without us."

Reluctantly, Korra wheeled her bike out of the grounds, following her friends. It was an annoyingly sunny day; the sky was a bright, cloudless blue, and Kuvira, Opal, and Jinora didn't help her glum mood by keeping up their usual stream of inappropriate jokes and good-natured teasing the whole way. When they reached the place where the boardwalk faded into the front lawn of the Silver House, Korra felt something in her lower navel suddenly give way and her legs turn to water. Yasuko's car was parked in the driveway, all doors hanging open, and a steady stream of luggage littered the path from the front door to the drive.

"Don't forget to check under your bed, Asami, you don't want to leave anything behind – oh, hello there!" Yasuko spotted Korra and the others standing down by the water's edge, and her face broke into a happy, albeit tired smile. "It's so good of you to come - Asami finally got around to telling you we were leaving today, then?"

"She mentioned it," Korra stammered. She made to put her bike down on the grass, but Yasuko was quicker; before Korra could even move she'd bounded down the lawn in five paces and seized Korra in a tight hug.

"My apologies," she said. "She always got so frustratingly vague about it whenever I asked her to tell you. It's her shyness, she's perfectly fine around me but when she's with other people she just shuts down – _not_ that it's anything against you four, of course," she added kindly, beaming around at them all.

"What are you saying about me, mom?" Asami's voice came drifting across the lawn.

"Nothing, nothing," said Yasuko airily, turning to face her daughter. Asami was dressed in a red tartan shirt that was rolled up to her elbows and black shorts, and Korra thought she had never looked prettier but she didn't want to seem like she was staring so she just aimed her gaze out towards the river instead and tried to pretend she wasn't sneaking glances through her eyelashes.

"Hi," said Asami, a little breathlessly.

"Hey," chorused Opal, Kuvira, and Jinora; Korra only half-moved her lips.

There was a rather awkward pause. Yasuko looked expectantly from Korra's group back to Asami, but when no one spoke, she said brightly, "Would anyone like a drink? Water? Iced tea? I'm sure Katara can rustle something up –"

"Oh, that won't be necessary," Opal blurted. "Actually, we were wondering if you need help packing at all?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, there is some stuff upstairs that I want to bring down," Yasuko said. "A lot of it's antiques and things that have been in the family for years, heirlooms and –"

"I can help with that," said Korra, stepping forwards.

"No, no, we'll do it," Kuvira said quickly. She nodded to Opal and Jinora and the three of them immediately set off towards the house. As they reached the porch Korra saw them put their heads together and break into silent giggles. She knew exactly what they were laughing about, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

"Wonderful," Yasuko said, still beaming. "Well, I'm going to give the keys back to Katara. Asami, did you check under your bed? Last chance, honey-pie."

Asami sighed impatiently like they'd already been through this a million times that morning. " _Yes_ , mom, I _know_ , mom, and I already have. Go give Katara the keys already."

Korra waited to the screen door to bang shut and for Yasuko to be well inside the house before turning to Asami.

"So, d'you need someone to put the luggage in the car? I'm pretty, um, good with my hands."

Asami just looked at her feet. "Yeah, I guess."

She turned and together they walked back in silence to the car. Asami walked a few steps ahead of Korra, rather than beside her, as if scared of contracting some serious disease from Korra if she ventured too close. The air swirled painfully hot and heavy around them, pressing down on Korra's shoulders.

"Don't do your back in," Asami said quietly, as Korra bent to heft one of the bags off the path.

"Nine lives," Korra reminded her.

She gripped the suitcase by the handle and swung it over her shoulder with ease.

"Just put it in the back," Asami directed. "On top of the bedding – oh!"

"Oh, shit, my bad," Korra muttered. The clasp on the suitcase had fallen open like the mouth of a trap, spilling clothes all over the garden.

"It's fine," Asami mumbled. She crouched down and began throwing the clothes back inside the suitcase at breakneck speed. "Really, it's fine," she repeated, a little sharply. Korra had bent down to help her, but the edge in Asami's voice made her snap her hand back at once.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Korra asked the question without even thinking. Asami's face suddenly turned a delicate shade of crimson.

"It's not _you_." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's – it's just – I don't want to go back. Not there."

It was the first time she had brought up school since they had gone camping together, nearly three weeks ago. Korra had not told any of the other girls what Asami had told her in the early morning stillness of the clearing; nor had she told them of what Asami had drawn in the sketchbook. She certainly could have; Asami had not asked her to keep the secret of why she had come to the Silver House. There were many times when Korra wondered if, indeed, Asami had expected her to tell her friends straight away, if she had expected them to ostracise her because of it. She wondered if Asami had good reason to expect the worst from everyone. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

"I wish you could stay," she said. "I know it doesn't help you saying this, but I'd give anything for you to stay."

"It does help me," Asami said. "You and Opal and the others – you've all been so nice to me – you're the first real friends I've ever made. Trust me, it helps when you say that you care."

"Of course we care," Korra said. Her chest had begun to feel very tight. She wanted a smoke. She wanted to throw up. She wanted nothing more than to kiss Asami.

Asami's eyes darted back towards the house as if she were checking that they were still out of earshot.

"My school prom's coming up soon," she said, in an even lower tone.

Korra smiled. "I'm sure I'll have to get to the back of the line to be your date, huh?"

Asami smiled wanly. "The guys at my school wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. We're – we're allowed to take girls, though."

"Really?" A loud rushing noise suddenly filled Korra's ears. She was digging a hole in Katara's garden with the sole of her sneaker, but she didn't really care. All that mattered to her was the sound of Asami's voice.

"Really." Asami let out a loud whooshing of breath. "Korra, do you want to come to prom with me?"

Korra tried to swallow, but something seemed stuck; she couldn't breathe, couldn't get the words out. She stared at Asami, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, terrified. Conscious thought was gone; everything was a confusing, whirling of grey in her brain, like the smoke from a late-summer grassfire just before dusk. 

"Oooh, yes, we'll go to prom with you, Asami!" Kuvira shouted suddenly, throwing her arm around Asami's shoulders. Korra jumped nearly a foot in the air; she hadn't heard her friends sneak up on them, although she was sure they'd done it on purpose.

"If they let us go, of course," Opal added, putting her arm around Asami's waist. "Can you take more than one friend?"

Asami blinked. "I don't see why not." She suddenly smiled, a broad, happy smile that made her features come alive. "Yes, actually, you should all come! That would be so great–"

"Asami was only asking _me_ ," Korra snapped, rounding on Kuvira.

"You snooze, you lose," Kuvira replied out of the corner of her mouth. Asami didn't seem to hear them.

"I'll get my dad to buy the tickets, he won't mind," she was saying. "And you can all stay over at my house afterwards – but how will you get there from here?"

"I have a proper license now," Kuvira said. "So, it's decided, then? We're all accompanying Asami to her prom?"

"Yes!" said Asami. "Yes, please do! I can't wait!"

"Asami, darling, we've got to go now, or else we'll get stuck in the peak hour traffic!" said Yasuko, bustling up to them. She swung a parasol, a hair straightener, several stuffed teddy bears, and a large oil painting of the river at dusk into the back of the Satomobile and closed the door of the boot with some difficulty. "Alas, this is goodbye, girls, but hopefully not forever – it was lovely meeting you all!"  
  
Katara came limping through the garden gate, her cane making thin clacking noises on the cobblestone path. She did not look surprised to see Korra, Opal, Kuvira, and Jinora standing there.

"Take care, Yasuko." She embraced the other woman warmly. "And you, too, Asami. I'm still not used to having to stand on tip-toe to give you a hug."

"I have a drawing for you, Katara," Asami said shyly. She reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that looked as though it had been ripped directly from her sketchbook. She unfolded it and pressed it into Katara's waiting hands.

"My goodness." Katara raised her eyes from the drawing to Asami's shy, anxious face. "It's wonderful. I shall treasure it as much as I treasure all the others. Look at this, all of you," she added, and she showed them all the drawing. It was a messy charcoal sketch of the front porch of the Silver House, rougher than the one Asami had done of the stream, but no less skilled.

"Wow, Asami!" said Opal, looking impressed. "I didn't know you could draw!"

Asami only shrugged, but her cheeks glowed from the praise.

"Asami, I'm sorry, but we've got to go," Yasuko reminded her gently.

"Okay," Asami said. She turned, finally, to face Korra and her friends. "I guess I'll see you in a month or so," she said softly. Korra felt a pang; Asami's voice was careful and calm, but only she knew what that meant; only she knew how how lonely Asami was feeling at the prospect of going back to Republic City.

"Definitely," Opal said. Asami held out her hand for them to shake, but Opal stepped forward and hugged her instead. Kuvira joined in, and Korra and Jinora all piled on until Asami sagged from their weight and began to giggle uncontrollably. Korra raised her head from the softness of Asami's hair and looked at Kuvira. Kuvira met her eyes, and what Korra saw there scared her as much as it intrigued her. Both of them almost seemed to hear the click – some final part of a machine sliding neatly into place with unknown intent – and Korra felt that chip of ice slip a little closer to her heart. That moment – the five of them, together, holding onto one another – stretched on for eternity, and it seemed so strong, so _right_ , that briefly she thought she might have spoken it aloud. Did Opal and Jinora feel it too, this electricity building between them, this unspoken _power_? She thought Kuvira knew. Kuvira felt it, Korra could see it in her eyes, flashing brightly for a split second then sinking out of sight.

 _Something is going to happen,_ Korra thought suddenly. _We're all together now. Whatever's coming, we can't stop it. What's done is done. Please Raava, God, anybody – help us._

"I've really got to go," Asami whispered. Reluctantly, she pried herself from the hug, and turned to her mother. All of a sudden, Korra couldn't stand it.

"Wait, Asami," she blurted. "Please, just wait."

She saw Asami turn around, her expression cautious, curious, somewhat pained. She looked at Korra like she was looking at a very bright light, and Korra felt a surge of frustration as she struggled to pinpoint the exact words she wanted to say. Why was it that before, she had found it so _easy_ to talk to Asami, to laugh and joke with her, but now, when all she wanted to do was tell her how she _really_ felt, her easy mouth and her quicker mind simply  _refused_ to cooperate?

"Yes, Korra?" 

There was hope mingled with the uncertainty in Asami's voice, she was sure of it. "Fuck it," she said. She leaned forwards and pressed a light kiss on the corner of Asami's mouth.

Asami's eyes grew very large and very round. "You - you lost the game," she whispered.

"Worth it," Korra muttered. Asami blushed furiously.

" _K_ _iss me, you fool_!" Opal hollered suddenly, doing a melodramatic fall into Kuvira's arms with her hand over her eyes, and then the spell was broken: the other three began howling with laughter, and Korra, who was still too shocked by her own recklessness, could do no more than smile stupidly. Asami returned her smile, then stepped hurriedly into the car when her mother beeped the horn.

"Come on, girls, we'll race you!" Yasuko called through the driver's window. She revved the engine and began backing out of the driveway. Korra, Jinora, Opal, and Kuvira clambered onto their bikes and pedaled madly, following the Satomobile's trajectory through the line of oak trees. At the point where the driveway met the highway the car accelerated and the bikes fell behind; Yasuko gave two more final beeps of the horn, and before she turned the corner Asami turned around and waved to them all from the passenger seat. Korra was still returning the wave long after the car disappeared from sight.


	15. The Girl and the Spider

Asami sat in her bedroom, watching as the clock on her bedside table ticked steadily towards seven o'clock. She lay perfectly still on her side, her long legs curving a graceful line over the bed covers. The room was all creeping shadow and shifting light: the setting sun made her skin look blood red. One passing by the open crack of her bedroom door might assume she had fallen asleep there, or turned to stone. Asami Sato was not asleep, however, and she was not made of stone, no matter how much she willed it: her eyes were wide open and they watched the clock, counting down the seconds.

_She's not coming._

The thought had wedged itself in the back of her brain ever since the day she had left the Silver House. It continued to dwell there in the weeks that followed, slowly laying its poisonous eggs of doubt, like a fat, burrowing bloodworm: _She's not coming. You're alone._

Well, not quite. The only other person in the Sato mansion right now was her mother. Asami was not alone, yet she was; alone with her mind, and her mind, as brilliant and sharp as it was, often turned on her. It was like living with knives in her head, each one aimed inward; every little move, every misstep, and she'd cut herself on them. The baby bloodworms of evil thoughts and terrible possibilities, multiplying and spreading like an infection: _Korra is not coming. You're alone. Did you really think this was going to end happy for you? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

Thinking was death from a thousand cuts. Sometimes she wished she could evaporate like liquid into gas, like the Wicked Witch from _The_ _Wizard of Oz_

(i'm melting)

break the shackles of her physical body and live as a disembodied spirit, for surely it would be easier than _this._ It was a paradoxical fact of her existence that Asami could be surrounded by a _hundred_ people and still feel like the loneliest person in the world.

Her mother was calling to her from downstairs. Asami did not return her call; she listened as Yasuko's footsteps made their way up the stairs, slippers scuffing on the floorboards. Her door creaked open.

"Asami?"

The bed dipped down as Yasuko perched herself at Asami's feet. Her hands, warm and calloused from working in the garden all day, brushed at the hair behind her ear. "You should start getting ready," she whispered. "You don't want to miss your own prom, do you?"

She sighed when Asami did not answer her. "This again? Asami, I thought we agreed that you wouldn't shut me out."

"I'm not—" Asami began, but then her throat closed, and she found herself unable to get the words out.

"You're still so convinced that Korra's not coming," Yasuko said. It was a statement, not a question. After a moment, Asami nodded. "Oh, sweetie. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I don't know," Asami muttered. Then, in a huge rush: "It just always seems to work out that way."

"I know it's scary," Yasuko said softly. "But you have to allow yourself to trust people. Korra said she would be here. Give her a chance." She stood up and flicked on the lamp by the bed, banishing all shadows from the room. "Do you need help with your hair?"

Asami nodded. Bed sheets whispered as she rolled over and sat up, joining her mother by the vanity where she kept all her makeup and hair things in neat, organised drawers. As she was so tall, she had to sit while Yasuko took a brush to her hair, ridding it of all the tangles and knots, then using the straightener to curl the ends, a trick Asami had never been able to get the hang of. A few days before, Yasuko had dragged her out of the house to go shopping for prom dresses, but Asami had been so indecisive they hadn't ended up buying any of the designer gowns Yasuko had picked out for her. In the end, she'd settled for a floor-length, bloodred gown she'd found in a Salvations Army outlet bin. Yasuko had taken it in at the sides and sewn red sequins into the bodice and the length of the skirt, and suggested that she wear it with dark red lipstick.  _I'm going to prom, not a wake_ , Asami had rebutted. 

"Skin pale as snow, hair black as night, lips red as blood." Yasuko worked the lipstick onto Asami's lips straight onto the tube, then stood back so she could see her reflection in the mirror. "And she was the fairest of them all."

"You don't think it's too much?" Asami asked uncertainly, squirming. The lipstick, like everything else she wore, was secondhand—Yasuko's favourite colour to wear at Hiroshi's work parties.

"For prom?" Yasuko smiled. "Never."

She pulled back the curl of hair that always hung from Asami's left ear, pinning it in place with a pretty red brooch shaped like a ladybird. The ladybird's wings were rubies and black opals, its spindly legs real burnished gold. "This belonged to my mother, and to her mother before her," she said. "I'd thought it lost for good until I found it in the attic at the Silver House."

"Wouldn't you rather keep it safe here?"

Yasuko kissed her cheek. "Of course not. It would be a shame to hide such a pretty thing away from the world. Do you like it?"

"I do," Asami admitted. She touched her head, marveling at how soft her hair felt, how it suddenly fell in ladylike curls that hugged her shoulders; all her mother's handiwork. 

"Every mother dreams of helping their daughter get ready for prom," Yasuko said. "I only wish I had a corsage to attach to your wrist." She dug a playful elbow into Asami's ribs. "Or maybe Korra will think to bring that herself."

"You're getting ahead of yourself," Asami said, rolling her eyes. Both of them turned when they heard an engine outside the house. A swell of nausea filled her throat, so sudden and so powerful that for a moment she thought she was going to faint. "Who is it?" she squeaked, as Yasuko went over to the window to look. "Is it her?"

"It's your father," Yasuko said happily. "He's home early." Asami didn't share her pleasure. Things had not been as strained between her and Hiroshi since she returned from the Silver House, true; but that was only because she simply refused to speak to him. Not that her father had the time for it; he was gone by the time she rose in the morning, and returned after midnight every night, when she and Yasuko were fast asleep. Some things never changed.

"You look beautiful, sweetheart," Hiroshi said, as she stepped into the kitchen aside her mother. The words were no more than courtesy. He embraced her in his big arms, enveloping her in the scent of Old Spice and mint, the flavour of the mouthwash he used to rinse away the stench of his cigarettes.

"It's so good to see you!" Yasuko beamed. She threw her arms around him, as giddy as a teenage girl, and planted a kiss his whiskery cheek. "What if the world ends and you're not at the factory?"

"I'm sure the factory could survive without me in the event of a nuclear apocalypse," Hiroshi replied dryly. He studied Asami's face behind his spectacles, his eyes roving from the ladybug in her hair to the heels on her feet. "And besides, I wanted to be home on my daughter's special day."

"It's just prom, dad," Asami said with some irritation, but at a look from her mother told her to hold her tongue. Hiroshi was never one for apologies, but maybe this was his apology to her; it would be the first night in months that they had shared dinner together, as a family. The dinner in question was a quiet affair, with Yasuko and Hiroshi doing most of the talking, Asami struggling with far too many nerves to contribute to the conversation much.

"I remember the day I saw the first ultrasound scans of you in my belly," Yasuko was saying, while Asami fidgeted restlessly and Hiroshi attacked his salmon with grim determination. Yasuko had poured three glasses of champagne for the occasion, but hers was the only glass that had been touched, and Asami thought that she was more than a little tipsy. "Did you know that you were once no bigger than a potato, Asami? A potato!" She pinched her thumb and forefinger together in front of Asami's nose to show her. "I couldn't believe a foetus the size of a potato could grow into a human being … but you did. And here you are." She smiled. "A potato grown into a beautiful young woman."

Asami plucked at her dress. " _You're_ beautiful, Mom."

Yasuko laughed prettily and fanned at her face with her napkin. "Do you really think so?"

Of course Asami really thought so. Framed by the light of the still setting sun, dressed in the knitted cardigan, leggings, and house slippers she reserved for days spent pottering around the garden, her mother might have been underdressed compared to Asami, but her stay in the Silver House had taught her that there were all sorts of beauty in the world; beauty was not always physical, but more of a _presence_ , the way someone's smile filled negative space with warmth and radiance. Korra's smile had been like that. She had seen Asami off with a smile and a secret kiss, and Asami had spent the intervening days and weeks since filling the pages of her sketchbook with cigarettes dangling from gap-toothed smiles, bruised knees, and eyes as blue and bright as a pair of faded Levis. The feel of her lips on her mouth. Skin on skin; Korra's thumb running over her eyelids. Touching her, exploring her body as she fell asleep. Asami did not want to ever forget, so she drew. Everyday, she drew one thing in her sketchbook, and it was as if the monsters had never bothered her at all.

(Yet something was missing. Her art teacher had once praised the realness of her drawings, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quite capture Korra's realness with her hand. Something like that was impossible to capture in a mere two dimensions; it was like trying to keep prisoner fireflies in a jar. The light was nowhere near as beautiful behind glass, and the pictures in Asami's sketchbook were mere shades of the real thing).

Yasuko had begun to sniff behind her wine glass. "Are you _crying_?" Asami demanded, appalled. Trust her mother to get all embarrassing on a night like this.

"What, aren't I allowed to be emotional on my daughter's prom night?" 

"Time for bed, I think," Hiroshi said, prying the champagne glass from her grip. He wrapped an arm around Yasuko's shoulders and coaxed her to her feet, steering her steps towards the stairs. "Asami, my keys are on the counter where I left them. I'll drop you off if you get the car started."

"I always seem to make you cry," Asami said, after her mother gave her one last hug. She suddenly wished she had sculled her champagne as fast as Yasuko had done; the few morsels she'd reluctantly swallowed down at dinner were squirming in her gut.

"It's happy tears, happy tears," her mother insisted, flinging her arms around both of them. "Because the two of you are mine, only mine, and I—"

"Asami, the keys," Hiroshi reminded her. Asami left them sitting on the stairs together, Hiroshi murmuring quiet words while Yasuko laughed and cried into his shoulder. Her own glass of champagne was sitting on the table where she had left it, still untouched, bubbles long gone, but she drank it down anyway. Then she drank from her father's glass, too. No doubt Korra and the others would have gotten drunk before travelling to Republic City; they would have flasks hidden under their dresses and in their handbags filled with flavoured vodka that tasted like fizzy drinks, in the way of all teenage girls, but Asami didn't even _own_ a flask … she was nearly eighteen and there were still so many firsts she'd never had, a kiss and a shared cigarette hardly scratched the surface of it, all those moments that had remained out of her reach … and was tonight to be another of those lost moments, not meant for her? Was it all just part of an elaborate joke, the ultimate punchline: to leave her sitting here in the dark while the clock ticked on and on, a sad figure in her lovely secondhand gown and her great-grandmother's ladybird brooch pinned to her hair … Korra had promised her she would text as soon as they reached the city, but it was nearly seven o'clock, and Asami's phone screen remained dark and silent …

 _Probably just caught in traffic,_ she thought.

Or they're just not coming, her traitorous mind whispered back.

(no they are of course they are it's going to be alright)

(it has to be alright)

_It never goes alright, you said so yourself. And think of what your mother would say, if it really turned out that way. She would be so disappointed._

The thought was almost too much for her to bear. At the Silver House, Yasuko had adopted the girls like they were her own, cooking for them, swimming with them in the river, listening to their gossip about boys and teachers and schoolwork, taking Opal birdwatching and showing Jinora how to fish and playing tennis with Korra and Kuvira on days when the weather wasn't too hot; she'd been overjoyed when Asami took her advice and started spending more time with them, Korra especially … so if Korra stood Asami up now, no one would be more crushed than Yasuko Sato, and that was almost worse than the possibility of being stood up … of what her mother would say …

(stop that Asami you just stop it now)

But maybe it _would_ be easier, she realised suddenly, sickeningly. She could see her reflection staring back at her in the surface of the champagne glass. Once, Yasuko had come home from her yoga class and caught a four-year-old Asami in her room, her chubby toddler feet clad in a pair of high heels from her vanity, streaks of her favourite Christian Dior lipstick smeared all over her lips, cheeks, and teeth. Asami was not that little girl any more; she was a woman grown, and her feet were no longer swallowed by the high heels, and the dress she wore accentuated all the curves of her maturing body, but looking into that reflection in the wine glass was almost like a reverse transformation, where she really _was_ four again, a little girl looking ludicrously tiny and childlike in her mother's things. It scared her. No one, not even Yasuko, understood the kind of tremendous courage for Asami to surrender herself completely to whatever the night might hold in store for her. Being stood up was hardly the worst that could happen. Perhaps it would be easier if—

(stop it)

Staying behind was safe. The mansion was safe. Her father was never home, but that in itself was _safe_ – predictable. At least Asami didn't come home to laughing, sneering boys who pulled her hair and tried to shove their hands under her skirt. Better to be safe than sorry. She felt too exposed.

(!!!stop!!!)

But if Korra didn't text, if she didn't come, what would she do? Withdraw, give up? High school was over in a month, and after that, the engineering scholarship her father had chosen for her would begin. Asami would move to Ba Sing Se, find a new face, a new home, in an industry that was mostly dominated by males, where she would be ogled and subjected to sly comments about her gender all day, forgetting the time she had spent at the Silver House, forgetting the first time she had ever felt like she fit in with other people, forgetting Korra? How many drawings would she have to do then, just to remember the feel of those lips? How many, just to keep that dream alive? Only to watch it slowly stutter and go out, leaving her in the darkness and the cold, leaving her without that warmth, without  _life_?

_No. Oh dear God, please no._

(please let this end happy for me)

"Asami, come on, we're going to be late," her father called from somewhere upstairs. Asami clenched the champagne glass harder in her first, watching her knuckles whiten.

 _If Korra doesn't come, destroy the house,_ the nasty, traitorous part of her mind whispered. The thought made Asami shiver and set the glass back down on the table. To turn those sharp blades and point them outwards, instead of inwards; isn't that what she had done, the day behind the gym when they had cornered her like wolves cornering a sheep? When she tried to remember, her mind simply blanked. She hadn't forgotten the shape she'd seen in the bricks, though, or the way it had felt: like opening a blocked dam within her very soul. She'd felt powerful, light as air, and something else: _aware._ Her mind had not quite snapped, but it had come adrift somehow, blown off course: blown through a door. Whenever Asami tried to open that door again, at night in the shadowy depths in her room where she had nothing keeping her company aside from the wind snarling against her window and her parents' soft voices coming from the adjoining room (they always spoke about her, and asked each other what they should do, what had they done to make her this way, should they go to another psychologist, should they move her to another school? _I just don't know what to do with her any more,_ her mother would say, and her father would murmur agreement, and night after night it was the same old talk with no end to it), she had felt … _something_ turn over. Asami imagined standing on thin ice, where it was rotten in places, and one wrong move would send her plunging into the cold darkness below; the thought filled her with a terrible, helpless fear the likes of which she had never known, except in her nightmares. She could picture the scene unfurling in the pages of her sketchbook: first the dinner things, plates and cutlery driven through the dining room wall. The table through a window. Tables, chairs, champagne glasses all flying, the plumbing ripped loose and water spurting, like arteries in a slashed wrist—

Her phone dinged at her elbow.

_Oh._

*

Korra was chewing her fingernails again. Kuvira could see the skin on her thumbnail welling drops of blood. She raised her hand and gripped Korra's wrist. "Don't chew your fingernails," she said. "You're going to bleed all over my dress."

"Sorry," Korra muttered. Three seconds later her thumb was back between her teeth again, worrying at the skin. She looked like a blubbery child, Kuvira thought. _If I were her mother, I would smack her over the head._ The nail-chewing was a nervous habit of Korra's, but it made _Kuvira_ nervous just watching her. She took Korra's wrist again, intertwining their fingers.

"Just hold my hand and you won't feel the urge to chew," she said.

"I can't _help_ it," Korra whined, but she fastened her hand around Kuvira's all the same. Kuvira stepped to the side to allow some pimply boys in rented suits into the gymnasium. The sounds of music and laughter floated, dreamlike, over her shoulder, and if she turned her head she could see some kind of soft revolving gloom through which glamorous shadows drifted: girls, their hair done up in pretty chignons or worn in long, thick curls, girls in gowns of satin and silk, girls who were wearing lipstick and false eyelashes and glitter for the occasion. Even the pimply boys were transformed once they stepped inside, became beautiful wraiths without substance, lit by the soft, hazy glow of silvery lights. Opal and Jinora had sighed like maids when they'd seen it, the pretty lights, the tables set up with candles and large white napkins and vases of flowers, the words CONGRATULATIONS SENIORS!! hanging over it on a banner spangled with stars; tonight was a first for all of them, except for perhaps Korra, who had probably seen larger and grander gatherings in other lifetimes.

"Wo- _ow_." A gangly red-headed youth in a suit that was too way too big for him in the shoulders stopped in his tracks, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets as they roved up and down Kuvira's dress. "Where did _you_ come from, baby?"

"Your worst nightmares," Kuvira said, bristling at him. He stepped back, clearly startled by her response, but one of his friends wolf-whistled. She watched them crowd inside, and did not realise her hands were clenched into fists until she looked down. Deep within the foundations of the gym, she could feel the bits of metal winking at her like glowing coals inside a fireplace. All it would take was a mental _flex_ , like moving the muscles in her little finger...

 _No,_ she thought, exhaling. _You're not that kind of person anymore, remember?_  Korra handed her a flask and she took a fortifying sip from it.

"If looks could kill," Opal chuckled. "I thought you were going to deck those assholes, Kuv."

"Maybe I'm going soft," Kuvira said, coughing a little. She couldn't afford to be drinking much tonight, being the designated driver and all, and the peach vodka burned her throat as it went down. It was black as pitch outside, so as long as none of the teachers standing inside the doorway checking tickets looked too close at the group of girls clustered near the curb, they were safe to pass the flask back and forth as many times as they liked.

"Sure. And he only liked you for your sparkling personality," Korra said. Her teeth chattered as she spoke. Being situated on the edge of the bay, Republic City was much colder than the Spirit Wilds, and none of them had brought a jacket. Korra had insisted they wait for Asami before going inside, though. Jinora and Opal had come to the prom because they wanted to dance and play the fairytale princesses; Kuvira had come because no one else had volunteered to be the designated driver and she wasn't going to let these three drunkards get home themselves; and Korra had come for Asami, and Asami only.

"My sparkling _multiple_ personalities," Kuvira replied, jiggling her breasts. Her dress was maybe a little skimpy for a senior prom, but life was too short to worry about how much skin you were showing. Still, the wolf-whistles rankled her. _This is why I don't go outside much,_ she thought. _People are gross._

Korra's hand suddenly tightened around hers like a vice. "Incoming!" she said, standing up on her tiptoes. "Yeah, shit. That's definitely a Satomobile."

Kuvira handed the flask back to Korra, who stowed it back inside her purse.

"Everyone act normal!" Korra hissed, like that even needed to be said. The four of them gathered together and pasted on their best aren't-we-good-and-wholesome-Catholic-schoolgirls smiles as Hiroshi Sato pulled up to the curb and stepped out. He was tallest out of all the Satos Kuvira had met, a robust, broad-chested man with close-cut, greying hair and gold-framed spectacles.

"You must be Asami's friends," he said, moving around the car to open up the back door. Korra said something, but then her voice cut off as Asami stepped out of the car, holding her dress up so it wouldn't drag in the gutter. They looked at each other, and neither said a word.

 _Don't laugh,_ Kuvira thought, watching Asami through slightly narrowed eyes. _Don't you dare laugh at her._ Korra looked like her heart would break if Asami didn't say anything, and if she laughed, then she would certainly die. But Asami did not laugh, and nor did she speak. She was as pale as a drowned person as she walked towards them with her arm around her father's, and as she got closer her eyes widened, grew huge and terrified as if the path in front of her was a beam across a chasm and Korra was the beginning of it. Kuvira wondered if that was what love looked like.

Finally, helplessly, Korra said, "You're beautiful."

"Can we go inside and dance now?" demanded Opal impatiently.

Asami was, and they did.

*

Asami joined the line outside the girl's bathroom, pulling her lipstick from her purse. Behind her, the RCC Senior Prom of 2016 was still in full-swing, each of her classmates nearly unrecognisable in their carefully tailored suits and hired gowns. She attracted a few stares herself, but of course this was nothing new; she was one of the weird kids, the girl who, at age sixteen, had become tangled in a deadly accident that killed her fellow classmate. _Freak,_ they called her. _Witch._ Once, they had pulled out her pigtails and rubbed her face in the dirt until she bled and cried. _Now they shower me with compliments and ask me where I got my dress from,_ she thought. 

Kuvira and Jinora were still on the dancefloor, and Opal was sitting in the corner with a boy in Asami's chemistry class. He was another of the weird kids, only because he had a passion for birdwatching. Asami watched as Kuvira picked Jinora up by the waist and spun her around in the mimic of a slow waltz, Jinora laughing and stuttering as she adjusted the tulle skirts of her fairyfloss-coloured gown. _They are beautiful_ , Asami thought. _All of them._ For the first time in her life, she felt at peace, like someone had taken an iron to her soul and smoothed out all the crinkles. The lights, the music, the dancing, her friends: it was all so perfect. She had left the mansion wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed and now she never wanted the night to end.

"Wow, some line, huh?"

Asami turned and felt her heart swell a little bit larger. "You can push in next to me," she said, and steered Korra to her side by the wrist. She could feel people's eyes driving into the back of her head, but decided she wasn't quite ready to let go of Korra's hand just yet. Korra looked like she wasn't ready to let go, either.

"Have you had a good night?" she asked her.

"Yes," Asami said, truthfully. "Thanks to you. I wouldn't have gone if it weren't for you."

"Seriously?" Korra looked at her like she was crazy. "But it's _prom._ You can't miss your own prom."

"I like the quiet life," Asami said. Korra was stroking her knuckles with her thumb slowly, and then she reached up with her other hand and brushed a tendril of hair from the side of her face, fixing it back underneath the grip of her mother's ladybird brooch. "Korra, people are staring at us."

"Let them," she whispered.

So it was that Asami Sato let another girl hold her hand all the way into the girl's bathroom at her senior prom, in front of all her teachers and her classmates. So it was that when Jinora went over to sign to Asami that she wanted to dance, Kuvira pulled her back with a meaningful shake of her head. So it was that when they finally got to the front of the line, Korra guided Asami into the nearest empty cubicle and Asami did not protest.

"I love this song," Korra said. They were so close to one another that their noses were almost touching, and Korra's eyes were so bright, so impossibly bright and blue, that Asami thought if her eyes were sunflowers, that Korra's eyes were fields and vast oceans of them. Her arms were heavy on Asami's shoulders, and Asami wondered vaguely when Korra had gone from holding her hand to wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

"Would you like to go and dance?" Asami asked her, already knowing the answer.

Korra shook her head. "We can dance here." She started to move, but the cubicle was way too small for one person let alone two, and soon Asami found herself pressed up against the toilet paper dispenser and Korra was swearing because she had hit her elbow on something and then Asami started to laugh because it was just so stupid and the _least_ romantic thing in the world, being stuck in a hot, smelly girl's toilet, but at least she was stuck with Korra, and she wouldn't have traded that for anything.

Someone slammed their fist on the door. "Will you hurry up in there? I gotta pee!"

"Sorry, it's a big one!" Korra shouted back, making Asami laugh again. Seeing as there was nowhere near enough room for them to both move their bodies, they just stood up right, waiting for the angry voices to recede away from the door. Asami couldn't look up without looking at Korra; she was everywhere, completely filling the space like she always did. Then she felt a hand snake around her waist.

"Alright, so this didn't work out the way I planned," she said. "But I wanted to tell you something, and I didn't want to do it out there in front of Kuvira and the others. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but …"

"What did you want to tell me, Korra?" Asami interrupted her, not ungently.

She saw Korra's eyelids flicker closed for a second. "I missed you,” she said, "like, a lot, Asami."

Asami smiled. _How could I have ever doubted her?_ she wondered. "Is that all?"

"No. I want to kiss you again," Korra blurted, then clapped her hands to her mouth, as if she'd just scared herself with her boldness. Asami reached up and pulled them back down.

"When I was a kid, I used to love playing hide-and-seek," she said. "I was the best at that game, you just ask my mother. She would count to a hundred and I would hide and she wouldn't find me for hours. My favourite place to hide was the wardrobe in the attic. I used to hide in there instead of going to school. If I stayed in there long enough, I thought to myself, everything would surely have changed when I stepped back out. I'd be in a completely new world. Maybe a completely new person."

"I used to play that game, too," Korra said. "Except I'd hide in my parents' bed, and pretend I was living a different life under the covers, until they found me."

Asami only looked at her. "I feel like I've stepped out of that wardrobe into a new world, Korra," she said. "I did it. I'm finally on the other side, where you are." She held out her hands. "I don't even recognise myself. And I don't ever want to leave."

Korra's eyes shone - with tears, Asami was sure of it. She looked so frightened and so vulnerable, so loving and so sweet, that Asami felt something - a wall, perhaps - in her give, tremble, topple over.

"Asami, can I kiss you?"

"You don't have to ask," Asami said, and Korra's mouth twitched up at the corners before she leaned in.

That night, Asami discovered that girls tasted like cigarettes and peaches.

*

"Have you seen Korra?"

Opal extricated herself from the wandering hands of the boy from Asami's chemistry class to give Kuvira a pained look: _you're kidding me, right?_ When Kuvira did not give any sign of backing off, she sighed. "Last time I saw her, she was lining up in front of the bathroom with Asami." She made a subtle shooing gesture with her hands.

"That was over an hour ago," Kuvira said, ignoring her. "I haven't seen them since, and neither has Jinora. They aren't answering their phones, either."

"Well, they're obviously still in the bathroom, then!" Opal snapped. She aimed a not-so-playful kick at Kuvira's ankle with the point of her heel. "Why don't you go cockblock Korra instead of cockblocking me?"

Kuvira only turned her head and fixed Opal's would-be one night stand with a steely glare. He shrank back from her, muttered something about having to call his mother for a lift home, and promptly dashed off. Opal was heartbroken.

" _Kuvira_! Do you know how hard it is to find genuinely nice boys these days? _And_ he wanted to hear all about my bird books, too..."

"Yeah, uh-huh, I'm sure he did," Kuvira said, rolling her eyes. "He looked like he wasn't even old enough to grow facial hair yet, Opal! I thought you had higher standards than that."

"It's been a while, alright? Do you know how much it sucks, watching Korra and Asami fall for each other like teenagers in a cheesy romcom when I haven't kissed anyone in _over a year_?"

"Wow, your life sounds _so_ hard," Kuvira said. "I'm just happy for them. Korra's even worse than you when she's single."

"Korra just wants to be loved. Don't _you_ want to be loved, Kuvira?"

"What I want is a shower and some sleep." Kuvira turned around when she saw Jinora approaching. "Any sign of them?"

 _I found Korra, but not Asami._ Jinora's thoughts broadcast themselves into their heads as loud as speaking when she was stressed out, and Kuvira winced a little at the blunt intrusion. _It's bad, Kuvira._

They found Korra passed out in the girl's bathroom, her skirts hitched up around her knees, one cheek resting against the toilet seat. "Really, Korra?" Kuvira groaned. "This is why we can't have nice things."

"Is she alive?" Opal asked worriedly.

"Of course she is." Kuvira bent down next to Korra's face and pulled up one eyelid, revealing a slack blue pupil. "Bet you anything she took something. Probably forced Asami to take it with her, too."

"If that's the case, then where's Asami?"

Kuvira looked at Jinora. The girl was the youngest member of their coven, but her powers were no less formidable: Jinora was what Katara called an _empath_ , a witch who could sense another person's emotions, delve into their memories, read all their greatest fears. "Can you find her?"

_I can try. There's a lot of interference right now. People are happy, in love, emotions are running high. Trying to find Asami in all that would be … messy._

Kuvira understood the risk. Jinora could cast herself into another person's mind at will, but in doing so, she also made herself extremely vulnerable. Katara had told them countless stories of famous empaths who had opened themselves up and then never been able to close that channel again, and then they had gone mad from the sheer weight of other people's thoughts cascading through their heads. _The mind is like a loaded gun in unskilled hands_ , Katara said once. _You must keep the safety on at all times._

"Try," Kuvira said. "And if you don't find her, try again until you do." She lifted Korra's head off the toilet seat, flicking her cheek lightly with her fingers. " _Wake up_ , you useless drunken bisexual!"

Korra's head lolled against her hand and then her eyes opened to half-mast, fixing blearily on the looming faces of her friends. Her pupils were as large as coins, nearly eclipsing the blue. " _Hurts_ ," she mumbled thickly, licking her lips.

"Jesus, what the hell did you take?" Kuvira hissed at her. Korra mumbled something, then her head jerked forwards out of Kuvira's grip and into the toilet bowl. Like the good friend she was, Kuvira held her hair back and tried not to let too much vomit splash on her shoes.

"Kuvira, I don't like this," Opal said anxiously. "What if she's been spiked?"

"I thought that, too," said Kuvira. "By who, though? One of the teachers? Those dickheads from the start of the night?"

Opal's eyes widened. "They were just kids. All it took was one look from you and they ran off with their tails between their legs."

"Not all of them," Kuvira reminded her. "I really didn't like the look of the one who wolf-whistled at me."

A gaggle of girls pranced into the bathroom, chattering as loudly as a pack of budgerigars. They would be going to Republic City after with their dates for beers and burgers, or further onwards to Ba Sing Se, where the clubs were open until ten o'clock in the morning. Kuvira watched them talk and laugh and take photos in front of the mirror; they hardly looked real to her, the way they seemed immune to sobriety, pain, death, heartbreak, all the ugliness in the real world. The normalcy of their lives - of gossiping in front of a mirror - was a shock to her, even after all this time. She longed to join them – what she would give to walk up to that mirror and have her only worry in the world to be what her lipstick looked like – but she had long ago accepted that she would never be a part of that dream. She was a witch, and in her world, fairytales were for children.

 _This doesn't make any sense. It's all just white noise._ Jinora's thoughts cut through her own once more. The empath was holding onto the wall of the cubicle for support, her brow furrowed in concentration as she listened.

"What? Did you find Asami?" Kuvira demanded.

 _I'm not sure._ Jinora opened her eyes. _Do you remember learning about sleep cycles in psychology?_

"Yes," said Opal. "There are five stages of sleep, aren't there? The deepest cycle is REM – rapid eye movement sleep."

_That's right. And we all produce different brain waves depending on which sleep cycle we're in, remember?_

"Yeah, and?"

 _Well, right now Asami's brain waves look like this._ Jinora began moving her finger up and down, drawing a pattern of oscillating loops in the air in front of them.

" _And_?" Kuvira pressed her, dreading the answer.

_It means that for some reason, at this very moment, Asami is sleepwalking._

*

The Witching Hour was drawing near.

Asami could feel it, building up in her chest like a scream waiting to be unleashed. Curling in her ribcage, a black monstrous many-legged thing, with gripping claws and teeth. It had _called_ her here: called for her to give it life, to breathe into it like she breathed into all her drawings, called her name with a voice that she had always known, but long since forgotten, since—

(do you remember my name)

A stab of pain shot through her head, bright as sunlight. Asami opened her eyes.

 _I'm dreaming,_ she thought. She was standing outside, shivering in the middle of the empty basketball courts in her prom gown with her hair flying loose behind her in black ribbons. _This can't be right._ She remembered noise and pretty lights – beautiful people in a soft revolving room – but she also sensed all that beauty slowly receding, like a wave drawing back into the depths of some dark ocean. Another stab of pain. There had been a dance. A girl. A girl with dark skin and eyes as blue as a pair of Levis, who had held Asami and laughed with her and then kissed her. Asami could taste peaches on her tongue, soft and sweet, and somehow that made her feel warm. Why did it make her feel so warm?

(remember Asami)

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head," she murmured, and then giggled. She had to be dreaming, she decided. She was standing right behind the school gymnasium, in the exact same spot she had been standing in when they—

(hurt me no please don't hurt me I'll be good I)

( _witch_ )

Pain lanced through her, bright and mean, like a stranger's smile. For some reason Asami thought of blood. The blood that now flowed through her veins, because of her mother. Maybe she was less like her mother than she thought. The thing in her chest roiled and bit at her lungs. Had it always been there, or had it sprung into being when she killed him? The hatred, welling out of the pits of her soul like bubbling columns of deadly sulfur, the desire to hurt; what came first, the chicken or the egg? All Asami knew was the soaring feeling she had felt when Vincent had begun to scream, the letting go. How wonderful it had been, to finally let go, to watch her pain fly back in the faces of those who had tormented her all her life. _No, no, no. You killed someone, Asami. You did a Bad Thing._ Asami had been raised right; she was a good girl, and knew when to say her pleases and thankyous at the right times, like one of those talking dolls where you pulled the string and heard the pretty phrases come out. She was a good girl, she would never—

(no don't hurt me)

(i'll hurt you i'll)

(eat your soul)

( _witchwitchwitchohyoufilthylittlewitch)_

He had died right here. Asami paused, then knelt before the spot like a woman about to take her prayers. Did they kneel like this, the witches of the White Temple? Did they kneel and pray for salvation from their Mother as their kind burned and screamed and died? The heavy droning, buzzing noise fell upon her like an invisible swarm, burying her. She imagined that the bees were still there, trapped under the bricks; they, too, needed her to breathe life into them, like a sculptor breathing life into clay. She placed a hand on the wall, and remembered the way she had seen the kanji take shape and _shine_ under her touch. She had been terrified, mad with fear, laughing even as she wept and Vincent screamed his last breath

(hurt you hurt you hurt you)

The bricks were warm when she touched them. Asami traced her finger over the rough surface, and her fingertip burned hot, almost painful. _Here comes the candle,_ she thought. _And now the chopper._

( _thou shalt not suffer a witch to live_ )

That was how she knew she was dreaming: the silence. The basketball courts were dark, so dark, and the only light she could see by came from a single streetlight on the other side of the street. The tops of the trees rippled like living things. Asami might as well have been standing on the moon for all she knew. She recalled, vaguely, the taste of peaches on her lips, and a girl's distant laugh

(remember _her_ name you must Asami you must)

The trees kept changing under the streetlight. One minute the trunks seemed as steady as stone, cut into planes of harsh white and deep shadows. Then they buckled: branches, leaves, roots roamed, rearranged themselves, and then they seemed to leap forward, crowding over her head, branches lengthening into long, black fingers that caressed her cheek. In the centre of the leaves, Asami saw the faces: animal faces, each one different. There was a crocodile, a bird weeping sap, a wolf, and a spider with many red eyes and many legs, and when the wind blew it seemed as though they were speaking to her in the quiet. Their faces changed, went from bestial to human, and she thought she saw her father in the crowd. _I'm melting,_ she tried to tell him. _Father, I'm melting._

The trees engulfed her, and as she fell, the taste of peaches turned into the taste of blood.

It was eight minutes to midnight.

*

Opal and Kuvira followed Jinora out of the gymnasium. Kuvira was the only one strong enough to carry Korra, and so she did, holding her under the knees and supporting all her weight on her back. No one stopped them; they were strangers from out of town, familiar to only Asami Sato, that odd, cold, beautiful rich girl that everyone disliked, even the teachers. The four girls she had bought to prom with her instead of a date were just as beautiful, and as odd. No one stopped them because no one saw them. _T_ _hey don't want to see us_ _,_ Kuvira thought. 'Normals', Opal called them: people who didn't have Raava's white magic running through their veins. Kuvira's heritage, strange and wonderful as it was, made her not-quite-human. Normals could sense this anomaly somehow, even though they might not be aware of it on a conscious level; like trying to put your hand over a naked flame, every instinct screamed at you to pull away.

"There she is!" Opal cried, pointing. Kuvira stopped short, lowering Korra onto the ground. Asami stood in the middle of the empty basketball courts, as motionless as a department store mannequin. It was an eerie sight: the only part of her that moved was the hem of her dress and her hair, rippling and dancing in the breeze. "Asami, hey! HEY!"

"She can't hear you, Opal," Kuvira murmured automatically. As soon as the words left her mouth she knew them to be true. "Jinora, are you getting anything? Is she conscious?"

_She's conscious … but she's somewhere else. I don't know, it's like she's on autopilot. It's creepy. I'm calling to her, and all I'm getting back is echoes._

Kuvira didn't like the sound of that. "You think she's under some kind of spell?"

_She has to be. I can't think of any other possible explanation._

"Oh!" Opal said suddenly. "Oh, oh, I have an idea!"

She opened up her clutch and rifled through it, pulling out coins, scrunched up bits of paper, a single false eyelash, lipstick tubes, a compact mirror, and, finally, her phone. "Professor Zei said that most spirits are invisible to the naked eye," she explained, in answer to Kuvira and Jinora's bewildered expressions. She swiped her thumb over her phone screen, switching on the camera. She held it up to eye level and focused it on Asami as if she were about to take a photo.

Kuvira said, "Opal, there's something wrong with your camera, it's all dark here—"

"It's not the camera. Look." Opal beckoned to her, and Kuvira stood up on tip-toe to see, frowning. Then her mouth dropped open.

"What the _hell_?"

Opal lowered the phone, and they all stared at Asami uncertainly; Kuvira was half-tempted to rub her eyes. There was nothing there. Nothing, except for Asami's flapping hair, the dress whispering around her ankles, the tops of trees in the background that seemed to melt into the deeper darkness of the night sky. Then Opal raised the phone upwards again, and Kuvira had a sudden mental image of a fluttering white veil that encircled the world. That veil was the everyday texture of things, a kind of mask that hid the sharp edges of reality—like a huge, rugged cliff face at the end of the world. A cliff face that was slowly, slowly, crumbling, breaking apart. There were places where the veil was worn away, and reality was thin … and then you discovered that doors didn't just open one way, but two.

Hovering over Asami's right shoulder was a coil of insubstantial black mass, only visible through the tiny viewfinder of Opal's phone. It hung down her back like a strip of flayed skin, and it _pulsed._ Kuvira could feel herself growing dizzy and scared. _This is wrong_ , she thought. _So, so wrong._ It was almost like her brain could not quite comprehend what her eyes were seeing: the thing was nothing more than a giant ink blot on Asami's shoulder, undefined, edges blurred and bleeding, but it was growing clearer all the time. Stronger. That sense of _thinness_ swept over her again, horrible and bleak. Her knees had buckled; she was struggling to hold Korra up, struggling to breathe. _Oh God, oh God, oh God._ It wasn't just a shadow, or a trick of the light, or a crack on Opal's phone screen: the thing was sentient. It was sentient, and it was feeding off Asami.

"What is that?" she whispered, disgust diluting some of her terror. "What's it doing to her?"

 _It came through the Ouija board,_ Jinora said inside her head. _It's corrosive, like acid. Its arms_ _bind her hand and foot, and it wants her. Wants all of us._

Kuvira heard someone moan softly, and realised the sound had come from her lips. She had always imagined spirits to be wee, cute animal-like creatures, rather like the soot sprites from _Spirited Away._ But _this—_

She nearly screamed as a sudden gust of wind lifted her hair from her shoulders. Jinora seized up, lips pulling back to reveal her teeth, her hands balling into fists just like on the night they had used the Ouija board. Opal felt it, too: she drew close to Kuvira and clutched at her hand, seeking protection. The wind circled back and forth, tearing at them like a wild animal, and to Kuvira it sounded like all the hate and pain and fear in the world being expelled in one anguished breath. Beyond the veil, something was coming. It was moving very slowly, but it never took its eyes off them. For it _did_ have eyes, Kuvira was certain of that: terrible bleeding red ones. She knew – her rational, deeply cynical mind knew – that it was just the night sky she was seeing, but at the same time, she knew it was something more. That something was _using_ that darkness. Something was using the night sky to see with, and what it was seeing was _them._

Then, abruptly, the unnatural, howling wind died. Kuvira felt her eardrums pop almost painfully: then someone seemed to turn the volume up, the volume of the _real_ world. She remembered where she was. The realisation was like a splash of cold water on the face. It didn't lessen her fear, though. If anything, it strengthened it. The thing beyond the veil – the thing on Asami's shoulder, the thing that slithered through the cracks of their reality like some nightmare reptile – was still there, waiting, holding its breath.

Opal was the first to move; perhaps she thought that she could snap Asami out of it, or wake her up somehow. Her trembling hand stretched out to touch Asami's hair, and without knowing why, Kuvira pulled her back.

" _Don't_!"

The air rippled, then seemed to expand. A detonation – a sharp intake, all air sucked into a tight core then spat back out - Kuvira heard Opal shriek, heard Jinora stutter a curse: " _B-b-BASTARD!_ " She drew in breath to scream herself, but then the explosion hit her, knocking all the air from her lungs. She felt herself thrown back, back, saw Opal and Jinora fly through the air like flicked bugs; they slammed into the brick wall of the gym at the same time, and as she went down, half-crushed between Korra's weight, Kuvira saw that Asami had turned around, her hands raised to chest-level, palms facing outwards. As she lowered her hands, Kuvira thought she saw a glint of red in her eyes.

"No," she gasped, "no, no, _no._ "

A shrill, piercing laugh came out of the night, rising and falling in insane cycles, loud, hysterical, chilling. The sound conjured up images of horrible things in Kuvira's mind, horrible: she saw the light of a thousand fires, smelled seared flesh and burning, saw ancient stars and candles as dark as the crypts that held the plague-riddled dead, rivers of blood and slaughter, bats flying from a woman's mouth. It was Asami: Asami was laughing, but the voice that came from her mouth was not her own, no, but a malicious parody. It was a voice Kuvira had sometimes heard in her dreams, a voice that was yellow and ancient and _heavy_ , like someone was speaking through a mouthful of river weeds. The spirit that had come through the ouija board was using Asami like a puppet on a string, ruthlessly working her jaws up and down so Kuvira could hear her teeth coming together in loud _clickclickclicks_ , and after all the things she had seen, it was _that_ sound that would stick with her, even as an old woman, she would still have waking nightmares about the way Asami's teeth had clicked together like that, hard enough to bite her tongue clean off. The laughter rose, split into dry crackles like rotten floorboards collapsing in the depths of an old house; it reached the pitch of a scream, then sank into a guttural, inhuman chuckling noise.

 _Oh God, please let it be over,_ she thought. _Please, please, please._

But it wasn't; Kuvira could feel it building again, like an electric charge in the air. It was only when she raised her head and saw that Asami was gone – vanished into thin air, leaving behind nothing but a single dead bee on the asphalt – that she finally found her voice, and began to scream.


	16. Killing Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.  
> Stranger: Indeed?  
> Cassilda: Indeed it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.  
> Stranger: I wear no mask.  
> Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask!
> 
> -Robert W. Chambers, _The King in Yellow_

She was dreaming again. In it, she was a little girl, and Katara's flowers were in bloom.

The garden behind the Silver House was filled with their rainbow-coloured plumage: roses, tulips, orchids, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers, forget-me-nots, lilies. In the spring Asami liked to walk through the rows, brushing the petals with her fingertips and bare knees. Sometimes the flowerbeds were so thick and so wild she could just disappear amongst them. She would hide while her mother would count to a hundred and it would sometimes be hours before Yasuko found her again.

"Pay attention, Asami," her mother said. She held up a flash card. The day, like every day at the Silver House, was muggy and hot. Yasuko wore her big floppy straw hat on her head, and sweat patches decorated her shirt in dark splotches.

"Spring," Asami said at once. Her mother flipped the flash card over and Asami repeated the Japanese translation while drawing the kanji in the air with her finger: " _Haru_. Spring. The season of flowers."

Yasuko smiled at her. "Very good." She gathered up all the flash cards, shuffled them, then spread them out on her palms so that Asami could take her pick of the next one. "When we get back to Republic City we could sign you up for proper lessons, if you want. Your father would like that."

"Oh," Asami said. "I don't know. I don't think I should."

The spirit vines were growing wild again; Asami could see them spreading across the length of an oak tree that stood just beyond the back fence, bulging from the trunk like arteries from an ancient heart. In a year's time, the tree would be completely covered. Once, she had asked Katara why she was so stubborn about keeping the vines away from the house. Katara had turned to her, bent down on her good knee so that she was eye level with Asami, and said: _The vines creep. If I let them grow wild, they'll eat my garden and my house up, easy as winking._

Yasuko was crestfallen. "Oh, Asami. Why not?"

"Because," was all Asami could say. Her eyes were glued to the back fence, where the shadows of vines hung from the trees, like stage actors waiting in the wings. (She could not see their faces—they were strangers, all of them, and what did her mother like to say about not talking to strangers?) "Because, because, because."

Her head snapped around when she heard a soft _whump_ from behind her. A coiled length of vine appeared to have fallen from its perch on the oak tree, and now it hung over the fence like a snake that had dozed off in the sun. It looked innocent enough, but Asami didn't think so. She thought it had moved on purpose, when she hadn't been looking. _And snakes can bite_ , she thought, with a sudden rush of unease.

Her mother, sad, beseeching: "But it's a part of who you are. You can't escape it."

Yes, Asami thought. Yes, I can. She would run away into the flowers and hide forever there if it meant she would be able to escape from it all: the name calling, the feet stuck out from underneath tables to trip her up in the middle of the cafeteria, the insults graffitied onto her desk and inside of her locker. Worst of all, the boys. The sneering, laughing boys, the ones who tore up her sketchbook. She wanted to escape them all so badly. She wanted—

(to break their bones skin their flesh drink their blood and EAT THEM UP)

Asami looked at her mother, startled. "Did you say something?"

Yasuko did not seem to hear her question. She placed a card face-up on the grass between them and tapped it with her fingernail. "This is an easy one," she said.

Asami stared at the kanji. It _did_ look vaguely familiar: two vertical lines curving away from one another, the line on the right topped by a third, smaller line, but her mind was distracted, and kept drifting back to the vines. Her hands were trembling in her lap, and she laced them together tightly. For a moment there, she could have sworn she'd heard a voice—a voice that spoke inside her own head. Except it was not _her_ voice, and the words were not her own. The words—they _burned._

"Fire," she said at last. "That's the kanji for fire."

You're being silly, she thought. Imagining things again. Mama always said your imagination was too big for your head—

She was being watched.

(remove thy mask)

The voice flared in her mind like a glowing coal. It was dangerous, persuasive, like a thick, smooth oil. Suddenly Asami could smell burning pork in her nostrils, burning pork and—fresh blood. The back of her neck grew sweaty and tingly, flaring between hot and cold panic at the same time.The coil of vine had moved closer. Before, it had been hanging over the fence. Now, it was on the ground, facing her. She thought she saw—or that she imagined—the fence suddenly bulge outwards, as if the vines were pushing on them from the other side.

 _It creeps,_ she thought.

The secateurs. Where were Katara's secateurs? She cast her eyes around and spotted them, lying on the grass a few meters away. She glanced nervously back at the fence. In the few seconds that she had looked away, more vines had crept through the pickets, and now they reached for her ankle like greedy green fingers. As long as she kept her eyes trained on them, they wouldn't move … but as soon as she blinked, or made a grab for the secateurs, they would be upon her. 

" _Pay_   _attention_ , Asami," her mother scolded. "Draw the kanji for me. Don't you cheat now."

Movement out of the corner of Asami's eye—a flash of green. More vines falling from the oak tree to join the others. Unfurling like flowers, beckoning, _creeping._  The fence bulged and slackened, bulged and slackened. The garden darkened as clouds scudded over the sun. The flowers were almost black with shadows now. Night was falling. But—how could that be? It was late afternoon, the sky was at its zenith a few hours ago—

The vines!

Asami made a leap for the secateurs, but it was too late. She opened her mouth to scream, but then her ankle was yanked backwards with shocking force; the flash cards whirled through the air as if disturbed by a great wind. 

"Run, Asami, run, run as fast as you can!" she heard Yasuko screaming.

Laughter, awful, wicked laughter hissing in her ears, like meat falling into a fire. Her mama was screaming, her mama was screaming and burning, her face was melting, her eyes were running down her face like melted candlewax, her hair was on fire and her mouth was pulled down in a horrible Halloween mask grimace— _run, Asami_ , she was screaming even as she burned. The vines were upon them, writhing like tentacles, and the forest was alive with red eyes and white gnashing teeth: the tall man was coming, he was striding through the vines towards her, his terrible face melting and changing and blackening, he was coming for her but he had no shadow and his feet left burning prints wherever he touched the ground—

(REMOVE THY MASK!)

Bells tolling, clanging, ringing in time with her footsteps— _run, Asami—_ the clamour was terrible, unbearable, it felt like they were ringing inside her very head, trying to split it in two, she was running but she was falling, being torn apart by the bells, the teeth in the forest—her legs slowed, grew numb. She was falling, falling to her knees, sinking. Darkness, closing in.

And then she was falling, not downwards, but upwards. Falling awake, coming to.

Asami Sato opened her eyes.

*

Something was squeaking in her ear. Something _warm._

Asami turned her head towards the sound. The warm thing was on her chest, nestling against her neck. A pair of white eyes gleamed at her malevolently in the dark.

With a cry of horror, Asami sat up, flinging the rat away from her. It took a scrap of flesh from her cheekbone with it, its oily, fat tail wriggling like a worm as it skittered away and vanished.

Gasping, hardly aware of the blood pouring from her cheek, Asami slapped at her arms and legs with her hands, just in case there were any more of the creatures clinging to her. Something clattered on stone and she felt around for it blindly; her cheek was wet with blood and her head was pounding, but her pain receptors were numbed by the sheer immediacy of her terror: she didn't know where she was or how she had gotten there, and a darkness as thick as the inside of a crypt enclosed her on all sides.

Her fingers closed around the object that had fallen on the ground, and she held it up to her face. It was her cellphone. Asami pressed the 'Home' button and flinched backwards, dazzled by the sudden light of the screen. She looked at the little bars in the upper right corner: no reception. Bad news. The good news was, she still had 10% battery. For a limited time, she had a light source, and maybe with it she could figure out where she was.

More squeaking, scrabbling noises. Asami turned the cellphone to her left; the light swept through the darkness like a lighthouse beam, illuminating walls that were black with time and rot. She could hear the rats, but not see them; judging by the sounds in the walls, some of them were as big as kittens.

 _Don't panic_ , she thought. She wanted to scream for help, and could probably do it until her throat was red raw, but she had a distinct feeling that it would be a long time before someone heard her. Her cheek stung badly from where the rat had bit it, but the real pain was in her head and back. How long had she been passed out like that? A couple of hours? What had happened to her?

Her feet tripped over something hard and she nearly dropped her phone. Asami directed the light downwards and saw strips of metal embedded in the floor, walled on both ends by vertical metal bars. _Train tracks_ , she realised with a shock.

She was underground—wandering through the subway tunnels of Republic City.

 _Don't panic_ , she told herself. _There must be a maintenance ladder somewhere, a way out. Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other gets you to where you want to go._  

Holding the phone out in front of her, Asami stepped uncertainly onto the train tracks. A rat tried to climb up her dress and she kicked it off, shuddering. Then she stopped walking. Her—her _dress_! She was still in her prom dress!

Asami nearly doubled-over as the memories came rushing back. That wonderful soft revolving room, the beautiful dancing people—that had been real, she had _lived_ that. Korra had been real. Korra had _kissed_ her. Then they had—what? There was a black hole between now and that revolving room; it was as if someone had simply scooped the memory out of her brain, nice and clean. She hadn't been drinking—except for the glass of wine she'd sculled back at the estate, she hadn't had any of the alcohol Korra had offered her from her flask. Asami could remember tasting it on her breath when they'd kissed—she remembered thinking to herself, this is what girls taste like, peach vodka and cigarettes—

A coppery taste suddenly filled her mouth, and she almost gagged; she'd bitten her tongue, hard enough to make it bleed. When had she done that? At the prom? Asami racked her brains, but she couldn't remember that one, either. She had another distinct feeling that it was important—that biting her tongue had something to do with how she ended up in the subway tunnels. But every time she thought she came close to remembering, the smell of burning pork and blood filled her nostrils, and that made her want to gag again.

" _Unmask_."

She stopped walking, her head cocked to one side. It seemed to her that in that very moment, the only sound she could hear was that of her heart, thumping erratically in her chest. She felt a surge of nausea that slithered from her belly to the very tips of her toes. No. It wasn't just her heart that she could hear. It was a voice.

"Hello?" she called uncertainly.

The phone light bounced off the tracks, the walls; a rat hissed as the light hit its white eyes, the eyes of a creature that had been born blind in the dark. Her battery was down to 5% now. She swept the light around again, but there was no other sign of movement, no answering call. Yet she knew someone was there. That something was waiting for her in the tunnel ahead, just beyond the reaches of the light.

 _In his house of red and black_ , she thought suddenly, _the incy wincy spider creeps up the water spout._

She didn't want to go down there. But the train tracks had begun to slope beneath her feet, as if—as if something _wanted_ her to go down there, anyway. A primal part of her still resisted—the same primal part of her that was in all of us, the same primal part that was terrified of the dark, of being alone, of death. The hand that was holding the phone was stretched away from her face as far as she was able, but the beam had grown weak; Asami could only see a foot in front of her now. It was as if the darkness was leeching off the light like a vampire from a maiden's neck, drawing power from it, bloating, swelling as it fed, becoming monstrous—

Her phone battery suddenly dropped to 2%, and then the screen went blank. "No!" Asami said, dropping her arm. "No, no, no, please—"

Her phone was completely dead, she knew it, but she kept pressing the Home button anyway, as if doing so would magically turn it back on. She didn't want to be walking around in the dark. Not knowing what was ahead of her—or what was behind her. She could still hear the rats scratching inside the walls like the restless dead. They would be able to smell the blood. What would happen when they decided to follow it to its source? She didn't want to think about it.

 _One foot in front of the other gets you to where you need to go_ , she thought. The passage yawned before her like the throat of a dangerous animal; she did not want to go that way. She had to go back. Uphill, that was her only way out of here. She turned around.

" _Unmask_."

"Who's there?!" Asami demanded. Her voice reverberated off the walls of the tunnel in ghostly echoes: _who'stherewho'stherewho'sthere._

Red light suddenly flared ahead, light that was as warm as the glow of a fire. _Maintenance lights_ , Asami thought, quickening her pace.  _Oh God, I hope that's what it is._ As her eyes adjusted, she saw what had been following her outside the perimeter of the train tracks: hordes and hordes of rats. They looked like members of a jury.

"Shoo!" she whispered, kicking her foot out. A few of the rats darted out of the way, but others quickly took their place. They didn't try to bite her or climb up her dress. They just watched her.

 _A trifle unsettling_ , she heard herself say, from within the recesses of her memory.  _More than a mere trifle_ , Zei had replied, clutching the book of sketches that had belonged to Wan the Walker, Wan the nomad. The red light soared and twisted like the tail of a comet; maintenance lights didn't do that. For some reason, the red light made her think of fairy lights. Asami suddenly wanted to reach out and touch it.

Her hand was halfway from her side when she realised what she was doing. Another door had opened up in her memory, this time buried deep; _don't look at the lights, Asami, you'll go blind._ The voice sounded like her mother's, but it might not have been. She did not remember much from her childhood; bits and pieces resurfaced from time to time, but they were only fleeting emotions, snippets of voices, bouncing through the intervening years like lyrics to a song she could never remember in full.

Still, the red light _was_ pretty. Asami looked at it closely and saw that it was not just one light, but eight of them. They flickered like the tips of candles in the dark, each prettier than the last. Asami was beguiled by them; they seemed to promise her things. They promised her that they would take her in and fill her up and warm her from the inside out, and when she woke up she would never be afraid or lonely ever again, because the lights would make her strong …

_I've forgotten something._

The memories flashed before her like falling confetti—bruised knees. Cigarettes and peaches. Sunlight, dazzling, dancing diamond-like upon the surface of a river. Peaches, their scent strong and cloying. Her mother—and her father—beautiful, framed by the light of the setting sun in the kitchen, happy and in love.

"There was—there was a dance." It was an effort to talk; her voice came out all small and scratchy, and her throat burned every time she swallowed. She took another halting step forward, her arms held out in front of her like a sleepwalker's. "A party … with friends. And—and a girl kissed me—"

She halted when she saw the darkness move. Someone was standing just around the bend of the tunnel. Asami couldn't see them, but she could hear them breathing.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "Come out. Show me your face."

Far, far above, from one of the tunnels closer to the surface, there came a distant, ghostly clattering of wheels. A blast of hot air swept through the passage, followed by a thin, wailing shriek of a train. And then Asami heard it, just as the sound of the train tapered off nothingness: odd, cold, tittering laughter. 

The hairs on her arms stood up, and she took an automatic step backwards. She _knew_ that voice. It was the feel of the sea on her face, that breeze that came off the bay in Republic City; it was the rasping of dead leaves on the pavement, kicked up by wind and flapping in front of her bedroom window; it was the insectile drone of bees, swarming inside the great hive of her subconsciousness; it was all around her and it was inside her bones, and she had been hearing it her whole life. She had heard it on the day Vincent had died, as she looked down at the kanji she had traced onto the bricks; she had heard it in her dreams, in her nightmares where she woke up screaming and then she drew in her sketchbook without even thinking of what she was drawing or why she was drawing it. And she had heard it when she had opened Wan's sketchbook and seen Vaatu's red eyes bleeding through the pages, as if they wept real blood. God, the scent of the ocean was so strong now, so solid, that she could have almost cried from the realness of it—

A hand closed around her wrist, wrenching her forwards. Asami shrieked as Vincent Kuan's swollen, disfigured face loomed before her like a leprous moon, the lips stretched in a sunken grin. "You're dead," she babbled. "No, no, no, you're dead, you're dead _—"_

She saw the cadaverous jaws opening, yawning wide; his flesh was cold and clammy around her own, and Asami knew he was real, but her mind kept refusing to believe it, so she just kept repeating the same phrase over and over even as he dragged her down, down into the sloping passageway: "You're dead, you're dead, no, no, this can't be happening, you're supposed to be _dead_ …"

" _What did you do to me_?" he whispered; his foul breath rattled forth from his throat like the air from an ancient grave, making her choke. " _What I will do to you. What I will do to all the daughters and granddaughters of Raava ..._ "

His fist slammed into her cheek, causing her to topple sideways. Asami flailed in the dark, completely blinded, while his soft, dragging footsteps seemed to be coming from all around her. Her tongue had started to bleed; in her nostrils she could smell burning pork. Then she hit something with her hand; something hard, buried next to the train tracks. She dug it out with her fingers, lifting it upwards— then threw it away from her just as quickly with a strangled cry of disgust. It was a bone. A human one.

With a thrill of horror, Asami realised where she was. Not the subway tunnels of Republic City, but a secret slaughtering ground. Looking around, she saw more bones embedded into the dirt at her feet; they were indiscriminate blobs of white in the crypt-like darkness, but she knew they were the bones of women. The bones of witches.

A burning pain shot through her hand. A rat, bigger and hairer than the first, had driven its sharp teeth into the flesh of her palm. Asami could feel the skin there bleeding profusely, the pain like a hot, white spotlight lancing up her arm. She grabbed the rat by its loathsome tail, but then another one latched onto her other hand and bit hard enough to make her see stars.

" _Now, remove thy mask_ ," she heard the corpse of Vincent Kuan whisper. His voice was changing, liquefying, deepening. The red lights spun in crazed mandalas, faster and faster, and Asami realised that they were not lights, but eyes. Eyes, over tens of thousands of them: ten thousand eyes, ten thousand years. Eyes that had watched her ever since was a little girl, playing in the garden. She'd had dreams, violent, blood-soaked dreams that had scared her so much she'd woken up screaming, and afterwards, to calm herself down, she'd drawn in her sketchbook. Only then, had she been able to sleep. The thing that had stalked her in her dreams had as many legs as he did eyes, so that was what she had drawn: a huge, monstrous spider, his body so large he usually took up two pages underneath her pencil.

Now she knew what she had really seen. Now she remembered.

Her hand sought the bone she had tossed aside earlier; she wrenched it upwards, and drove it into Vincent's eye socket. The corpse uttered a hoarse, bubbling cry and staggered backwards.

 _Fire,_ she heard her mother say. _Fire, Asami. Trace it in the air for me, and don't you cheat now._  

Her fingers released the bone, came down to touch the floor. Asami did not look down; it was too dark to see anything, but she did not need to. She could already see the shape in her mind, as clear as day. That shape was _hi_ , the Japanese kanji for fire.

The rats were moving as one, rushing towards her through the darkness like the tide, drawn by the blood, by her panic. Her finger traced one line … two … Vincent's face was changing, the eyes turning red and greedy; he reached for her eagerly, like a magpie that coveted a particularly lovely piece of jewelery … then he pulled back. Asami heard a loud, clear _SNAP_ in her eardrums, and saw what remained of Vincent's mouth contort into a vulpine grimace of pain and rage.

(what?)

Vincent's clothes burst into flame.

He screamed and released his grip on her, arms pinwheeling in the air; in the blink of an eye, the fire spread down his body, until his whole torso looked like the head of a birthday candle that had been set alight. Rats squealed in panic and fled, tails and bodies coiling over one another, falling down the slope in their haste to get away from the sudden heat and light. Another _SNAP_ , and they, too, were aflame, and their shadows writhed and danced on the walls of the tunnel as they burned. Vincent, or the thing that had pretending to be Vincent, was howling, his fingers melting and morphing into claws that ripped savagely at the charred flesh of his skull, as if the creature inside was trying to tear itself to pieces to escape the fury of the flames.

"Run, you little fool!" a voice hissed in her ear.

Rough hands seized the collar of Asami's dress. She was being dragged off the tracks, shoved back up the passageway. She could not see, she could hardly breathe, and so her body reacted out of pure survival instinct: digging her heels into the ground, she thrust her elbow backwards, until it connected with a body. The hands around her neck released her at once. Asami spun around, preparing to use her nails, her teeth, even the heels of her shoes to defend herself—

"Do you want to die screaming?" the voice snarled. A woman was standing over her—at least, Asami thought it was a woman, judging by the harsh rasp of her voice—but she was wrapped in so many layers of clothing it was hard to tell. Strong, wiry fingers locked around her hair, twisting painfully, forcing her around. "You _will_ , if we linger any longer! Now _move_!"

" _Let go of me_!" Asami lashed out with her fist, striking the woman in the face; they both fell down onto the train tracks in a tangle of arms and legs. The hood fell away, and Asami almost wet herself when she saw what was underneath. Her savior was not human. The face was long and pale, and the eyes were the orangey-red colour of flames in a campfire. She had no irises, no whites, no pupils; her eyes were completely orange, an orange that shifted and flickered hellishly. She was on fire inside.

The demon, or woman, or woman-demon—was looking right at Asami, and she was smiling. An intense, aromatic heat was baking up from her clothes, making Asami think of burned matches. Her incisors protruded over her lips, hideously long.

"Afraid of fire, I see," she sneered. "That's good. You should be, _witch_."

She came forwards, reaching for Asami, who tried to struggle, to fight back, but the smoke in the tunnel had thickened to a cloud, and she came down on her knees instead, coughing and choking. Long white hands took her by the hair, and she let herself be lifted up, as frail as a newborn; as the woman with the orange eyes cradled her in her arms Asami looked back, and what she saw was the mouth to hell. Lit by the glare of the flames, Vincent's eyes were like two bloodclots in a river of shifting, changing flesh; they swiveled around and fixed upon her, and in their crimson centres Asami saw worlds distant and strange and unknowable, worlds that would drive her mad in a heartbeat if she were to glimpse them with her own eyes. Maybe she would, one day; she had a feeling that she would. Time was a wheel; it always came back to the same place.

"I remember your name," she whispered, and then she turned her face away from the fire, and knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features the first cameo of an A:TLA character I have wanted to include in this story for a very, very long time. Who is it? I will give you a hint: she did not reappear in _The Legend of Korra_ , and I'm still upset about it.


	17. The Exile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewatched the Blair Witch Project the other day and it motivated me to finish this particular chapter  
> i'm really sorry for the sporadic updates, i've literally been too sad to write (boo, excuses, excuses, but shit happens)  
> i swear, i will finish this story even if it kills me.  
> 

It was just after one o'clock in the morning, but the thermometer in the kitchen of the Silver House rested on a record ninety-five degrees, the temperature of a late summer's day. On the front veranda, the radio had been left on at full blast, but the rocking chair where Katara usually sat with her bad leg resting on a cushion was empty. In between bursts of static and snippets of late-night infomercials, the presenter mentioned the unseasonably hot weather spell currently sweeping through Republic City and its surrounding 'Spirit Wilds'. According to weather experts, it was the hottest night in nearly a decade. The presenter finished his spiel by warning folks to keep drinking those fluids—tequila sunrises on Republic City’s waterfront didn't count, har-har—then promptly segued to yet another infomercial for multi-purpose stain removers.

The porch was suddenly lit up by a ball of flame that materialised on the lawn. The fireball expanded, then separated into two humanoid shapes. There was a loud, clear _SNAP_ —as if someone had clicked their fingers—and a woman landed lightly on the grass, supporting a younger girl in her arms.

Asami gasped as the ground rushed up to meet her face; then she felt herself yanked back painfully by hair: the thing that had carried her out of the subway tunnels. The thing with the orange eyes. She tried to pull away, but the creature had a grip like iron; clawed fingers dug into the flesh of her scalp, spreading numbness down to her temples.

"Who—who are you?" she gasped. " _What_ are you?"

The demon woman paused, cocking her head to one side in a gesture that was somewhat birdlike. She—Asami had come to think of her as a she, despite her lack of pupils—looked neither young or old, human or inhuman. Her features were oddly distorted and smooth-looking, as if someone had buffed her skin with a pencil eraser.

"My name is Azula."

The woman's incisors jutted over her lips as she spoke; Asami couldn't take her eyes off them.

"I'm like you. Or I was." Her mouth twisted into a humourless smile. "I don't think you want to know what I am _now_."

Then it happened, so fast that Asami didn’t realise until Azula let go of her: a rat shot out from underneath her dress, squeaking shrilly. It darted across the grass like a black arrow, in the direction of the vines. There was a loud, dry _SNAP_ , the sound of breaking kindling; the rat uttered a high-pitched shriek of pain as it disintegrated in a rolling ball of flame. Asami’s stomach turned over. _Blood and burning_ , she thought. _Burning and blood._

Dizzily, she watched as Azula lowered her hand; smoke rose from the two fingers she had used to smite the rat. "Vermin," she was muttering. "Rats creep. They are the perfect little spies, the way they can squeeze themselves into small spaces, watch you while you sleep. _This_ one was most likely following us on the orders of its master."

She anchored her terrible orange eyes on Asami’s face. Even in the dark, they glowed as bright as traffic cones. Asami looked down at her own hands and saw the bite marks, which were still dark with her blood. She remembered the flesh being ripped away—remembered the feel of tiny teeth and claws latching on. They were at the Silver House, she realised. She was standing on the lawn of the Silver House in her prom dress. Something had happened to her, something horrible. Her frail, battered mind had blocked it out for the time being; erased it like the details on the demon woman's face, made them flat and indiscernible. It was her eyes, she thought. Azula’s orange eyes, the flickering light of them, as if she were cooking inside her clothes, made her feel afraid. That smell— _blood and burning—_ was all over her, in her hair, sinking underneath her skin. Burning. Burning … meat.

"I—I don't feel too good," she said. Her skin was prickling with a feverish heat; her throat felt parched and dry. Her mind was finally collapsing inwards on itself, like a stack of cards, leaving nothing but a tiny hole through which she could see, a hole that was rapidly shrinking as the last of her energy left her. "His eyes. Don't look at His eyes—you'll go blind."

Azula managed to catch her before she fell, wrapping one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders.

"Ssh," she rasped. "Sssh. Oh, my sweet girl. You think you know what pain is?"

A cold wind was coming off the river behind them, rising in a kind of soft, sighing whisper: _shaaaaaa._ It tugged restlessly at the hairs on Azula's neck, and she stood still for a second, listening. They were being watched. _Shaaaaaaaa_ , _shaaaaaaa,_ the wind whispered; the sound rose and fell like a person’s breathing. It was the sound of the swamp witch, she knew. Azula could feel her moving in the wind, in the river currents, in the very foundations of the old, beautiful house behind her. Golden light spilled warmly from its windows, as if to welcome guests inside, but she knew better than to trust appearances; the Silver House was no more a house than she was human.

"You think that just because you fell down a little hole, you've suffered? Oh, my dear heart."

She was talking to herself; the girl she had rescued from the train tunnels had fallen into a catatonic silence, most likely too traumatised by what she had seen down there, but that was no longer Azula’s concern. A mad paranoia had suddenly seized her; she began to walk, keeping her eyes fixed on the house. She sensed the night breathing down her neck, nipping at her heels, but she did not dare look back.

"You don't know what suffering is," Azula went on. "Only He can teach you that. Only He."

The hood had fallen away from her face, releasing her hair into the night; once, in another life, her hair had been her pride and joy, she remembered. It had been a symbol of her status, her royal blood. Once, she had been human, but all that she had—her looks, her throne, her humanity, her _soul_ —taken from her, taken and destroyed by the woman who now resided, like the crone in that fairytale about the lost children, in that old, beautiful, terrible house. It was as much her birthright as the rest of them—but, of course, the swamp witch had taken that away from her, too.

"He will teach you about the end of time." The radio on the porch was still droning away, as if Katara had turned it on and simply forgotten about it. Azula was not fooled; she could feel the swamp witch’s eyes following her up the steps. It was near suicidal, but she almost wanted to see how far she would get before Katara decided that she'd had enough of games and decided to put her down for good. Azula hoped she would; death would be a blessing, a relief after a lifetime of pain. "The end of light. And you will rejoice, _rejoice_!"

Then her foot was on the top step of the porch and she was pushing the screen door open, stepping inside the foyer of the Silver House. Time had changed nothing at all: everything, down to the vase of tulips on the mantelpiece, and the gilded cuckoo clock that blurted out the most unusual times (4:27, 11:08, 1:52), was exactly as Azula remembered it. What was new was the smell: that of not just one witch, but _five._ Azula's breathing accelerated, and her skin began—literally—to crawl. It had been years— _years—_ since she had come into contact with any witch at all; the wights had all but wiped them out. She took great, deep breaths, clenching her hands into fists to stop them from trembling: even now, the scent of a witch caused the blood in her veins to boil like water over a stove. _Five witches_! Strays, no doubt, that the swamp witch had collected and stowed away over the years—stowed away as if they were the most precious of jewels. But _one_ witch was worth more than a hundred precious jewels—five witches, on the other hand, was a _whole feast_ —

 _Burn them_ , her father's voice whispered suddenly. _Burn them all to the ground, Azula. Do your duty._

Her nails—sharp, yellow, filthy—were cutting into the flesh of her palms, drawing pinpricks of blood. Her father's voice went on whispering, whispering—he had been dead for decades, yet even in death he still spoke to her, and it was always the same thing: _burn them._ The Silver House was one of the last impenetrable strongholds for witchcraft, protected by all sorts of spells woven into the woodwork centuries ago by the first of Raava's daughters. Katara was one of the last of a declining bloodline; the duty had fallen upon her shoulders to protect the house and its legacy. It seemed Ozai’s death had been in vain: Katara had not only managed to hide five witches in plain sight, but she had raised them, too. She had acted as their caretaker, mentor, and mother—for she was without coven, a lone blip in the atmosphere not unlike Azula herself. Was that what they called irony? She thought it was.

 _Witches are like cockroaches_ , her father told her once. _You can kill hundreds of them, thousands, throw them on burning pyres and watch the flames eat away at their faces, but in the end, they will always find some way to come crawling back out of the ashes._

How true it was, she thought. How unfair!

The wallpaper was still the same—cream-coloured, with tiny patterns of native flowers at intervals. Azula walked over to the dining room table and nudged a chair out with her foot, setting the girl down on it gently. She was picturing herself touching a finger to these flowers, watching them blacken and curl around her nail. Flames blooming out of the wood, spreading to the carpet. Once the fire got going, it would be ferocious, unstoppable, like a wild animal, like she had once been, in her glory days. She imagined it tearing up the staircase, devouring the wall hangings, leaping up to the ceiling, exposing the wooden beams underneath the plasterwork. And, just like that, the destruction was no longer all inside her head—the destruction was _really_ happening. Like a many-headed snake, her wight-hunger uncoiled in her chest: for a brief second Azula was as whole and powerful as she had once been, a soldier of the righteous and the clean, striking her enemies down with blue-white bolts of fire and lightning—

"Your—your _face_!"

The witch she had rescued from the train tunnels—had suddenly lifted her head, and was staring at Azula with terrified awareness in her green eyes.

Azula opened her mouth to speak—then, the pain. It slammed through her chest like a metal hook doused in ice. She doubled over, her face twisting into an expression of utter torment. A scream waited in the back of her throat, animal, hate-filled.

"What’s happening to your face?" the girl whispered.

"I was like you." It was difficult to get the words out; the pain filled her to the brim. It was more than pain; it was like being violated with a hard, cold pick of ice. It was the swamp witch's fingers gutting her cleanly from the inside out, like a fisherman gutting his catch, dousing out her wight-hunger with brute efficiency. "Your sisters have many names for my kind. Corrupted. Zero. _Wight._ "

Groaning, she staggered over to the table, pulling out another chair so she could sit. The wounds were opening up in all the old places now: on her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her chin. They opened and closed like thousands of tiny mouths. Each one was supposed to represent the mouth of the swamp witch, spilling her blood, eating away at her sin. Azula knew what she must look like: a grinning horrorshow, a nightmare dressed in red.

"Each name is a curse," she went on. "It means there is a black mark upon my soul. Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned!"

"It's _father_ ," the girl corrected her. "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."

"Why should we answer to our fathers, when it was the Mother who birthed all men, in the beginning?" Azula sneered. She could no longer see; two sores had burst on each of her eyelids, blurring her vision with pus and blood. "They say Raava and Vaatu were siblings, two sides of the same coin, yet is it not entirely possible that Vaatu was birthed from Raava's rage, her envy, and her greed?"

It was a slow torture, being this close. The scent on the girl was not as strong as the others—it was new, fresh, like a flower just beginning to poke its head about the frozen ground on the first day of spring—but it presented a powerful temptation for Azula all the same. Did she know what she was, did she know of the power that flowed through her veins, untapped? One part of her—the part that was her wight-hunger, the part that was never truly dead but dormant—wanted to crush it, before the knowledge came to light. It was only the natural order of things, after all. You killed one cockroach, that was one less that the world had to deal with. Oh yes, Azula was tempted. She had danced on the precipice of temptation her whole long life, and paid for it dearly. The _other_ part of her—

"Be still," she whispered. She reached out, and took the her hands in her own clawed, wasted ones. Rat bites criss-crossed her skin, caked in dried blood; they would need to be sterilised to prevent infection.

As if sensing what she was about to do, the girl began to pull away. " _N—_ "

She broke off, her eyes widening. A spark had ignited underneath Azula's fingers; the flame moved back and forth over her palms, burning the blood black, sealing the rat bites shut. The girl drew in breath to scream, but then, when no pain came, she abruptly relaxed. Azula knew she would feel no pain, of course, only a vague, tickling warmth. It was her mother who had taught her to do such a thing, long ago. The two of them had sat on the bench by the pond, passing the flame back and forth as if it were a secret. _It’s warm_ , Azula had said, in wonder. _Of course it’s warm,_ her mother said. _It is life._

"How did you do that?"

The girl was looking down at her hands, which were now clean of blood. The bite marks had disappeared, save for a few tiny pink dots that imprinted her skin like lines of Braille. The pain in Azula’s chest was also fading, receding like the tide. Her face felt raw and flagellated, but the welts had stopped bleeding. Soon, they would harden into scabs, and flake off like snow if she picked at them with her fingers. Underneath would be a new layer of skin, smooth and mannequin-like, with no scarring, no tissue damage. Until, of course, she felt the wight-hunger again.

"Do you realise how close to death you came tonight?" Azula said softly. "If it weren't for me, the Two-Faced God would have eaten your soul." She smiled widely, making sure to show all her teeth. "I wonder if you taste as pretty as you look?"

"The Two-Faced—" the girl gaped at her stupidly. " _What did you say_?"

And then Azula felt it. The swamp witch was moving; she was moving fast, very fast indeed. Their souls were connected with a string that shuddered with every tiny step, like tremors in a spider's web. _Come out_ , she thought. _Come out, you bitch. I'm right here. Come and gaze upon your divine creation._

"The Black Goat of the Woods, He Who Eats the Light!" she said, throwing up her hands. "Every witch grows up hearing the tale of His battle with Raava that almost destroyed this world and the next, even the witches who are Corrupted—unless—” she suddenly leaned forwards. "Your mother didn't tell you?"

That touched a nerve; all the colour drained from the girl's face. "My—my mother?"

" _She really didn't tell you?_ " Azula tossed her head, bouncing a wild cackle of laughter off the ceiling. "Well, this is _interesting._ To what purpose would it serve, keeping a daughter of Raava ignorant of her own destiny?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know." Azula's skin had begun to move again; the sores opened like craters and burst into rivulets of blood, coating her cheeks. Her eyes burned a dangerous, molten red; the smell radiating from underneath her layers of clothes had deepened into something earthier. Something volcanic. "You can cower from the truth all you like, dear heart, but you and I are one the same, very much like Raava and Vaatu. We both have the white light running through our veins, the white light that—"

She broke off abruptly, her head cocking to one side. The whispering, rustling sound from outside had grown louder. Closer. Out on the lawn, something was gathering, some great force. Azula could feel it rushing towards them, propelling itself through the darkness as if winged, a thing of great mass and power. Everything else—the cicadas, even the ticking of the clock—had fallen silent; all she could hear was that rushing whisper. The smell of the river— _her_ smell—was thick and heavy in Azula's nostrils. _Come out_! she thought. The words became a spell in her head, running down the length of that delicate soul-string that linked them together. She felt, or she thought she felt, on the other end of the line, something tremble in response. The beginning peals of thunder—or an earthquake.

And then the swamp witch answered her. Azula had been expecting it, but she was still woefully unprepared for the onslaught that was to come; she, who had been living like an animal for so many countless years, scurrying around in the dark and damp places underground where there was no other living soul save for the rats, which she had been forced to feed on in her exile; the swamp witch, on the other hand had carved into the vines her home, had made the river and the sky bend to her will with her daily blessings to Raava; and now she answered Azula with the full force of the river and the sky behind her.

The front door burst open, flying off its hinges with a great, shuddering crack. A girl screamed piercingly, but the scream was drowned out by the wind, which had suddenly become a maelstrom. Deadly spears of glass flew from a shattered window; Azula was ripped viciously off her feet and dragged, by the wrists and ankles, towards the door. Her nails found the sides of the doorframe, and for half a second she hung there, almost horizontal in the air; then she was gone, wrenched backwards and swallowed up by the night.

*

**"I WARNED YOU."**

Asami ran down the lawn in her prom dress, the blood pounding in her ears. All around her, the land had suddenly come alive; the trees bowed down, their trunks groaning, the tops of their branches clutching at the moon. The surface of the river heaved like the skin of an angry beast; huge white caps smashed into the boardwalk and flowed onto the grass, lapping at the hem of her dress. The wind was like a living thing in her ear, a cacophony of voices that screamed and cried with terrible anguish. She could see the places where Azula's body had carved great gouge marks in the lawn; the tracks curved down, down, towards the shoreline, where a great wall of water waited, a wall of water that stretched ten feet in the air. In its centre—

**"I WARNED YOU NOT TO DEFY ME, AZULA."**

The voice split the air like thunder, causing Asami to stumble and nearly lose her footing. The bells, she thought, these are the bells. The ground beneath her was trembling; icy droplets of rain had begun to fall, cutting at her skin. The very air seemed to crackle, as if charged with electricity; she tried to stand, but the wind was too strong, pushing her back down.

"No," she gasped. " _No—_ "

On the riverbank, a great storm was gathering. In its centre stood a figure. A woman. Swirling tendrils of water cloaked her arms and legs; they undulated about her head like angry pythons. She was dragging Azula by the ankles, using the water as chains, reeling her in like a great, many-armed octopus reeling in its prey. When she moved, the river moved with her; when she spoke, the whole forest joined its voice with hers.

**"I GAVE YOU A CHANCE. I LET YOU LIVE. I WILL NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN."**

"Katara, _stop_!" Asami screamed.

She could see Azula struggling to break through the water chaining her wrists. There was a loud _SNAP_ , and a yellow plume of fire spurted from Azula's jaws, colliding with the water in a cloud of hissing steam. Katara shrieked, a horrible sound, a sound filled with agony, yet not entirely human; a hundred other voices also poured forth from her throat, the voices of women, thousands of them, young and old:

**"MURDERER. BETRAYER. CORRUPTED. HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THIS SACRED PLACE, WHEN THE ASHES OF YOUR SISTERS ARE ON YOUR HANDS?"**

More bursts of fire gushed from Azula's mouth and hands, but a tendril of water had wrapped itself around her throat, and another slapped her in the stomach, tossing her through the air like a rag doll. Katara’s figure was an unreal blur, coordinating the movement of the water with the movements of her body; as she interlocked her fingers, the water began to climb, encasing Azula's torso, her shoulders, and then finally, her head in a shimmering, blue-white cage. Frantic streams of bubbles flew upwards from her mouth as Azula fought to break the surface of her prison; she was drowning, Asami realised helplessly. Katara was drowning her from the inside out.

"Stop!" she cried out again. Then, in pure desperation: "KATARA, SHE SAVED MY LIFE!"

For a split second, Katara looked at her. She was a terrible sight to behold; her eyes glowed an alien, electric blue, her upper lip curled into an ugly snarl. Water cloaked her arms and shoulders like a second skin; it did not drip or flow from her body the way normal water would, if it were at the mercy of gravity; it simply hovered there, caressing her body almost lovingly. Nowhere in that face did Asami recognise the kindly old woman she had grown up with and loved like a second mother, nor did she see any recognition in the merciless depths of Katara's eyes, either.

She took a hesitant step forward. "Katara—"

An arm of water seized her around the waist, lifting her high in the air; she was thrown backwards rudely, all the breath leaving her lungs as she hit the ground. Gasping, utterly winded, Asami rolled onto her side, just in time to see the water column collapse, regurgitating Azula onto the grass. She saw Katara turn; the undulating arms of water whistled about her head like deadly whips as they went in for the kill, but it was too late, a split second too late: Azula made a violent slashing motion with her hand, and a loud, clear _SNAP_ cracked the air like a pistol shot. Asami cried out, her hands coming up to protect her eyes from a sudden flare of hot, orange light that blazed across the lawn like a miniature sun. Through the gaps in her fingers, she saw flames rising, searing a black ring into the grass. And then she knew Azula was gone; that instead of staying to fight, Azula had fled.

" _Murderer_!" Katara was still screaming. She stood in the centre of the burning circle, wringing her hands. The unearthly presence that had lent her its voice was gone, and her eyes no longer burned with that alien blue colour, yet somehow she was more frightening than ever before; her eyes rolled in their sockets and her hair floated about her face like ghostly white cobwebs. " _Murderer_! _Coward_! _You think I am done with the likes of you? You have forgotten the face of your mother! MURDERER!_ "

With a sucking, gurgling sound, the water retreated, disappearing back into the river as if slurped up by an invisible straw. With that, all was suddenly, eerily quiet; the wind died and the river stilled, as if there had never been a storm in the first place. As if the whole land had never risen up in protest, Asami thought. Katara had fallen silent, too; for an awful second, Asami thought she was going to fall on her bad leg. Then she realised the old woman was weeping.

"Katara—"

In the aftermath of her ordeal in the train tunnels, her brain had been reduced to performing the most basic of commands: move this arm, watch that step, lift that leg. Now she felt an electricity running through her that was more than awareness; it was a heightened level of being. It was as if every colour, every sound, every detail down to the blades of grass under her feet, was magnified and set alight. There were so many questions Asami wanted to ask.

She pushed herself to her feet, sparing a sad glance for her ruined prom dress—and approached Katara from behind. Of one thing she was sure: she was not afraid of her. Even after hearing those entities speaking from her throat, she was not afraid. Katara loved her, and she had always protected her, since Asami was a young girl. The thing that had worn Vincent's face in the train tunnels, she had to keep reminding herself, was far away from here—she had been saved, once again

( _again?_ )

"Are you alright?" Katara was still facing away at Asami, and now she had her face turned up at the moon. Because she was still crying, Asami thought. She was grieving for something. She thought she had an idea what it was.

"I’m fine," she answered. "Azula saved my life."

"She is an abomination," Katara said bluntly. "A monster. I made the mistake of letting her live—a moment of weakness I have always regretted. But I told her, I promised her the next time she stepped foot inside this place again, I would show her no—"

She broke off, whipping around to face Asami as if only just realising she was there.

"What happened to you?"

"She saved me, I told you," Asami said, but Katara ignored her. She grabbed her hands and turned them over, so her palms were facing upwards. Asami could not see the expression on Katara’s face, but she could feel the soft, papery feel of those wrinkled fingers against her own.  

"This is—" Katara began breathlessly. Then she seemed to stop herself; she straightened upwards, and when she did, she was suddenly brisk and business-like. "Never mind it now. Come inside. I need to call your mother."

"You’re a witch, aren’t you?" Asami said.

She spoke the words out loud, and once they were there, out in the open, she knew at once that they were true, and that she did not even need Katara’s confirmation. The answer was in Katara’s eyes when she raised her head and looked at Asami in the face. Asami gazed back and saw the woman she knew and loved with all her heart, but she also saw another woman, too. A woman she didn’t recognise. A woman who could command water with the crook of a finger, a woman who was a mother, a daughter—and a sister.

"Inside," Katara said finally. Her fingers tightened around Asami’s palms, insistent. "Quickly. Yasuko must be worried sick."

Asami did not move. "Go on. Say it."

"Asami—"

"What happened here?" she went on. "Who was speaking just before? Other women, just like you? Like _me_? Were you crying for them?"

She could see the shadows shifting over the contours of Katara’s face, changing her. Nose, lips, eyes all moved downwards; she looked stern and powerful, like the stone statue of Raava in the river. Then the light changed; Katara’s eyes grew wide and scared and childlike, the eyes of a young girl trapped in an older woman’s body, eyes that Asami knew and didn’t know. 

"Do you know why this place is called the Silver House?" Katara said.

Asami shook her head. Her mouth and throat had gone dry; her heart was pounding again. Katara had let go of her hands and was walking back towards the house; she beckoned to Asami, who followed her eagerly. Katara pulled out the pins that held her braid in place as she spoke; her hair trailed down her back, shining and ghostly, almost silver under the light of the moon. Asami had never seen her with her hair out like that before.

"Long ago, there lived a family of wild women by the river. They were all hermits, social outcasts; many thought them crazy, and witches, but they were well-loved by the female population of the local township, despite the rumors of the rituals they performed in a temple of carved white stone. Every month on the full moon, the townswomen would visit the porch of their cottage and leave wicker baskets silver coins on the doorstep, along with prayers for luck or goodwill to come their way. It was said that the wild women always refused the donations, because they needed neither the coin nor the prayers to work their magic; nonetheless, on the night of the full moon, the riverbank behind you glittered with specks of silver, like fallen stars."

"Not for long, though," Asami said, remembering Opal’s story. "The Temple split in two factions, and the other side, the Order of the Black Goat, burned all the witches alive."

"Yes. Fire is a monstrous thing. The wights are fire personified, women who rose too high, grasped at powers far beyond their understanding. Fire is lust for power, war, carnage; witches have knowledge of all elements, but they are forbidden from playing with fire, because of the risk, the temptation. There were witches turned wights in the Order, women whose temptation claimed their souls, their humanity, and turned on their sisters. Such a crime sealed Azula to her fate long ago."

"She—she said that she was corrupted, that she was a zero," said Asami. "That there was a black mark on her soul—you mean to say she _burned_ —"

Katara raised a finger to her lips. "I feared something like this might happen, and I was right. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I cannot say more than that without consent."

" _Consent_? From who?"

"From your mother." Katara crossed the porch steps and picked up the radio that was sitting on her rocking chair, shutting it off. Her long silver hair swung like a curtain when she turned around, still beckoning to Asami with one brown hand. "Come."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (pls let me know that you're still reading and i'm not just screaming uselessly into the void)


	18. Blood Pacts

"Why do I need my mother’s consent?"

"Because you do not understand what you are asking of me," Katara said. She stood at the kitchen sink, filling a bowl up with water. "Hold out your hands."

Gingerly, Asami did as she was told. The palms of her hands stung where Azula had cauterised the rat bites; the little red dots made her skin look inflamed, like a rash. She wanted badly to scratch at them, but one look from Katara told her she was permitted to do no such thing.

"I was bleeding pretty badly," she said, "but Azula stopped it. With fire."

"Let me see," Katara said. She came over to the table with the bowl of water clutched to her chest, and Asami moved aside to make room for her. Katara’s thumbs dug into her palms, spreading her fingers flat. “She only contained the infection. She did not exorcise it from underneath the skin.”

"'Infection'?" Asami repeated nervously. "What kind of infection?"

Frustratingly, Katara seemed to be deaf to most of her questions. From the pocket of her housecoat she withdrew a small pair of gold spectacles, which she placed on her nose. Then she submerged her other hand in the bowl of water. Asami watched the water rise to meet Katara’s fingers, encasing them in a pale, silvery glove. Katara lifted her hand out of the bowl and Asami stifled a gasp as the water flowed over her palms; it was like having her hands plunged into a bucket of ice.

"Too cold?" 

"A little."

"It is for the best, trust me. Water cleanses and purifies. It is healing." Katara pushed her glasses further up her nose. "I know what you saw," she went on. "I know Azula looks human because she was, once. But whatever remained of her humanity is ashes now. I am surprised she did not try to hurt you."

"Why?"

"Because," Katara said, "Azula took away from me all that I loved, and left me with nothing. She is a liar and a killer. Spreading death and pain is what she lives for."

"How many of them are there? The wights, I mean."

Katara gave her a sharp look; Asami felt examined, dissected under her gaze, as if the old woman was trying to decide how much to tell her. "Now they outnumber us," Katara said, lowering her gaze back down. "Once, covens were spread across all over the world. The wights picked us off one by one … fire is the only thing that can kill a witch, you know … and thanks to the spread of witch hysteria throughout Europe, they were able to murder us with impunity. ' _Thall shall not suffer a witch to live_ ', that’s what it says in the Grimoire of the Two-Faced God. Even if you weren't one of the chosen, if you lived alone and you were a woman and you didn’t come along to the Order's sermons every day, they’d paint a target on your back all the same."

"So … you had a coven?" Asami said, sitting up a little straighter. "Who—?"

Katara shook her head. "I have already said too much," she said. "More than your mother would like me to tell you, I’m sure."

"When is she getting here?"

"As quickly as she can. Korra and the others are with her, too. They sounded distraught, to say the least."

"It happened during prom," Asami said. "I remember now … or I don’t. Korra and I were in the bathroom. She—we’d been drinking. And she gave me a pill. She called it … her friend molly. It was just a bit of fun—"

"Yes, well, I can only imagine what Korra considers ‘fun’," Katara said darkly. "What happened after that?"

"I bit my tongue. And then Korra was gone, and I was outside. I was—I was where—where he—” Asami stopped. No, she thought. No, I can't talk about that. Then she said: "When I woke up again, I was underground. And I saw—"

In hushed tones, she told Katara what she saw: the huge tree pushing its way up through the underground cavern, its branches spread across the walls and floor in thick tangles; the swirling galaxy of red light in the centre, like hundreds and hundreds of blinking eyes. She told Katara about the bones she had seen buried at the base of the tree, like gifts, or sacrifices; she told Katara about how the rats had driven her there, like a helpless steer in the slaughterhouse, and how the lights had drawn her in. It was impossible to describe the terror she had felt when she realised that she had no control—if it weren’t for Azula, she would have simply kept walking, down, down, finally falling into whatever awaited her beyond the red light. Or perhaps Vincent would have dragged her inside. She still did not know what it was she saw down there; she did not want to know. She thought that no one, not even the most sane and stable of minds, would be able to handle the weight of that knowledge.

"Azula saved me," she said. "I called her, and she came."

"You _called_ —?"

"I drew the kanji for fire," Asami breathed. "It was just like the bees. I summoned her."

Katara’s eyes flickered closed, and for a moment, she did not speak. Her hand reached up to pull the glasses from her nose, tucking them back into her pocket. "Those are no ordinary rat bites," she said finally. “Someone, or something, has marked you. If the wounds reopen, or if you feel any pain, you must tell me immediately."

"Katara, I’m not crazy," Asami said forcefully. "What I saw down there—it was the end. Of everything."

Incredibly, that made Katara laugh. "Asami, people have been calling women like you and me crazy for centuries. You better get used to it."

She turned away from the table, reaching for her cane, which was propped up next to the wall. Broken glass crunched underfoot as Katara stepped over to the gaping hole where the door had been torn from its hinges. All along the door frame, Yasuko had noted down Asami's differing heights over the years in Magic Marker. _6 years old: 55 inches. Eight years old: 60 inches. PREDICTION: 5 feet @ 10 yrs._  Azula's nails had carved long, white scratches through the numbers, obliterating a third of her childhood in one swipe. "Tonight was close," she muttered. "She will be back. They always come back."

"Why would she keep coming back?"

"Because this place was her home, just like it is now yours. Home is where the heart is, after all."

Asami opened her mouth to ask another question, but she was cut off by the distant sound of an engine. She looked over her shoulder: headlights cut across the lawn, moving steadily down the driveway. "That's gotta be mom’s Satomobile!"

"Asami, wait—”

But Asami never heard her. Gathering her skirts into her hands, she raced out onto the lawn. Sure enough, a Satomobile was trundling towards her, Yasuko’s pale face reflected in the window like a sickly moon. When she saw Asami, something in her expression seemed to break: she killed the engine, but even before the car stopped moving, she had jumped out onto the gravel. "My baby!" she cried. "Oh, thank God, thank _God_ —"

"Asami! _Asami_!"

Car doors slamming, girls crying out her name. Opal running towards her, white and shocked. Black tear tracks of mascara dotting her cheeks. Jinora tightly holding onto Kuvira’s hand. Kuvira’s face, slack and expressionless, blue-black crescents of skin hanging underneath her eyes. She let go of Jinora and planted her hands on Asami’s shoulder blades, forcing her backwards, away from Yasuko. Asami felt her back hit the outside of the Satomobile with a thud; shocking pain radiated down her spine, and she wondered how badly she'd been bruised, having slept on a tunnel floor while thousands of rats watched over her from inside the walls—

"Let go of her!" Opal shouted. "Kuvira, what the _fuck_ —"

Kuvira said nothing. She merely stared into Asami’s eyes, hard and searching. Her fingers pressed into Asami’s shoulder blades like rods of steel, but Asami sensed, somewhere deep inside, a great shift. She didn’t know Kuvira very well, but she had always thought her demeanor untouchable; she exuded an aura of authority and power that had, until this point, always seemed reliable, a source of safety. Whatever that essential quality was, it was gone now. This version of Kuvira was stripped away, exposed. Something had moved her, shaken her to her very core.

"That’s enough," someone said. "Kuvira, come on, dude. Relax."

"Her eyes. They were red," Kuvira mumbled. She was being pulled away from Asami, but she still looked back at her; her eyes no longer had that hard, piercing quality, and instead she just looked lost, uncertain: "Red eyes," she said again. "We all saw it."

"That wasn’t Asami and you know it," said Korra firmly, who was pulling her away. She gave Kuvira’s shoulders a hard, brisk shake. "You good?"

"I—" Kuvira stood there blinking, open-mouthed, as if she suddenly didn't know who Korra was. Then she let out a fractured laugh: the sound was jagged, like a piece of broken glass. "Shit. Yeah. Sorry. I just thought…"

"Alright, everyone inside the house." Katara hobbled over to them, leaning on her cane. "Korra, Yasuko—the grounds have been compromised. It is no longer safe for us to be outside."

" _Compromised_?" Korra rounded on her. "What do you mean, 'compromised'?"

"It was a wight." Katara practically spat out the words, lacing each syllable with venomous contempt. "She had Asami. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but—"

"I already told you," Asami interjected angrily, "Azula saved my life!"

"Azula was here?" Yasuko’s voice climbed several octaves. " _Here_?"

"Look, a rogue wight is whatever, okay, it’s the least of our worries," Korra said. "Katara, Kuvira’s not wrong—something possessed Asami at prom. It came from the Ouija board—"

Behind her, Kuvira put her head in her hands, Opal winced as if someone had stepped on her foot, and Jinora uttered a small, frightened squeak.

"Is that true?" Katara asked calmly, pursing her lips as she gazed around at them all. Asami thought she heard an undercurrent of danger in her tone. "Girls—look at me, all of you. Did you use an Ouija board?"

" _You said you wouldn’t tell_!" Opal hissed to Korra.

"Why not?" Korra retorted hotly. "It’s how this whole mess started, right? You got too cocky and pissed off some spirits—"

"It wasn’t like that!" Opal said desperately, flapping her hands. She appealed directly to Katara: "I swear it wasn’t like that, it was only a bit of fun—"

"You know, that’s the second time tonight I’ve heard that excuse," Katara snapped. "I did not spend years ensuring your safety just to have you throw it all away at the drop of the hat, Opal! ‘A bit of fun’, indeed!"

She limped closer and raised her cane, punctuating each word with a sharp jab into the air.

"You. Never. _Ever._ Know what’s waiting on the other side of that door, do you understand me? For Raava’s sake, Jinora is just a child. How could you expose her so recklessly?"

"W-we d-d-d-didn’t k-know we would be e-e-exposing our-ourselves!" Opal began to blubber. "P-Professor Z-Zei said—we could talk to the w-w-witches who used to live here—"

"Witches who all died the most painful deaths imaginable, Opal!" Katara was almost shouting now. "Witches who were wrongfully convicted, who went to the stake swearing vengeance! Their souls are imbibed into the soil of this land where they took their last breaths! Who _knows_ what you could have unleashed, had you been in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"That wasn’t no dead witch that came through that fucking board," Kuvira croaked.

"The Two-Faced God," Asami murmured. Everyone, including her mother, was looking at her, but she only had eyes for Kuvira. "Red eyes, right?"

Kuvira nodded slowly. She was gripping onto Korra’s arm, Asami noticed, as if she were going to topple over if she tried to stand by herself. "Red eyes. Like—like your brains were bleeding."

A silence fell over the group. Once you say the name out loud, Asami thought, it becomes more real, more solid. Close. Then, out of nowhere, Yasuko started to cry. She bent over, her arms wrapped around her stomach, and began to take long, deep breaths. Gently, Asami touched her shoulder. "Mama?"

Yasuko did not straighten up, did not turn around. Then Asami heard her say one word, under her breath, unintelligible.

"Mama, I didn’t hear you."

Yasuko, still not looking up, nor looking at her, raised her voice:

"No."

"Yasuko, it’s not working, what we’re doing here," Katara said. "The cat’s out of the bag. He’s coming for her, no matter what. She—she’s already guessed half of it—"

"I said no!"

Yasuko straightened up to face them, her eyes blazing, her fists clenched. "What was it that you said?" she whispered, baring her teeth. " _I_ did not spend years ensuring her safety just for _you_ to throw it away at the drop of a hat—yes, _you_ , Katara! What right do you have?"

"I have no right," Katara said, raising her hands. "I promised you that day in the hospital that I would help you protect your own, in whatever way possible. But—"

"But what about my right?" Asami said loudly, stepping in between them. Both adults looked at her in surprise, as if they had forgotten she was there; behind her, Korra, Kuvira, Opal, and Jinora swiveled back and forth like Labradors as they followed the exchange. "I have dreams, no, nightmares, okay, where you're dying, Dad's dying, where you're burning and I can't save you, where monsters are chasing me through the woods, and the best you can do is pathologise it and send me to a shrink, like you think slapping a Band-Aid on the problem will make it go away, but if you actually wanted to fix it, you'd shut.  _Up_! Just shut up, both of you, and listen to me! I _knew_ what I was years ago. I knew there was something different about me, I knew why the other kids at school all hated me, it’s because they knew, too, they were made right but I was all _wrong—_ ”

"You weren’t made wrong," Katara said quietly. "Asami, what you have—it’s a gift."

"Then why didn’t you or Mama ever tell me I had it? Why did you just let me believe that I—I _deserved_ to be treated like that?"

"I know," Yasuko said thickly, wiping at her eyes. "I know, baby. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry."

"Then talk to me, Mama," Asami pleaded. "Tell me what I did, and why I forgot it."

"It wasn’t anything you did. It was—"

Yasuko stopped talking, squeezing her eyes shut again. Opening them, inhaling through her nose. Then she let all the air back out, as if she were preparing to take a leap from a great height. "Maybe it's best if you see what happened for yourself," Katara said to Asami. "That way you can truly understand."

"How?"

"After that day, I cast a spell to make you forget," Katara said wearily. "You would have been traumatised otherwise. I can undo the spell—but I must warn you. Repressed memories, especially memories such as this one, can be painful to relive. Sometimes just the shock of having everything suddenly flood back can kill. Knowing that, do you still wish to see?"

"Yes." Asami answered without hesitation, without missing a beat. "Yes, of course. Please show me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys aren't sick of all the cliffhangers, dramatic tension is my a e s t h e t i c  
> short chapter cos i have an exam on the 8th and i didnt want the gaps between updates to be too long this time  
> also, cos dramatic tension  
> alrightalrightalright


	19. 'The Tall Man'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The killer woke before dawn  
> He put his boots on.  
> He took a face from the ancient gallery  
> And he walked on down the hall.  
> \- The Doors, 'The End'

Katara led her upstairs, into one of the ensuite bathrooms. The bathtub took up the room like an empty grave, white and sterile.

"Is this a joke?" Asami asked her. Her voice swelled like a bubble in the cavernous space, then shivered and broke.

"Water will help lubricate the process," Katara said. "Dredging up memories can be sometimes like scraping your skin with a scalpel. You have to be careful, otherwise you could draw blood. Or worse." She gestured to the tub. "Get in."

Behind her, Korra, Opal, and Jinora gathered in the doorway, their faces heavy with trepidation. Korra’s pupils were blown, almost blackening out her irises; she seemed the most anxious to get this over with, wiping at her forehead boyishly with the back of her hand, twitching out her tongue licking the sweat from her lips. Asami could feel the need emanating from her like invisible steam, the twitchy urgency. The two of them hadn’t even spoken alone since Asami’s last moments of proper consciousness, back in the girl’s toilets at prom, when Korra had held her hand and slid a pill between her teeth with her tongue. The world had fallen away from her, like a drop from a very great height; she had tasted copper at the back of her throat, the sharp tang of her own blood. She understood Korra’s anxiety, the rawness of her want: she wanted to go back to her, too, to return to that moment. Just the two of them; there was so much she wanted to say, or not say; she just wanted to return that kiss, to tell Korra how she felt with her lips, the force of her body. How scared she was.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Opal asked Asami nervously. Poor Opal; her face was red and shiny from crying, Katara’s scolding having cut some of her old swagger away like a knife.

"No," she answered, as Katara turned the taps, releasing twin streams of water into the tub.

Steam billowed upwards; Asami lifted her skirts, remembering with a pang of irony how worried she’d been, sitting on her bed at home trying to decide if she should skip her own prom, if Korra was even going to be there. That seemed like yet another Asami, a girl she was no longer familiar with; another memory she viewed from above and beyond, as if it belonged to another life. She lowered herself into the tub, wincing a little: whereas Katara’s healing water was like an icy balm, this water was boiling hot. Her hair floated on the surface in a black scrim.

"I’m going to need your help," Katara said. She beckoned to Jinora, who immediately stepped forward. Glitter sparkled on the bodice of her dress, winking sleepily in the light; Asami felt a rush of grief for her, for all four of them; they had been lured in by the magical whimsy of the night, all the pretty lights and people pressed together in that beautifully decorated room, that simple promise of normalcy, the flowery rites of passage. A wilted chrysanthemum, Kuvira’s gift of a corsage, still clung to Jinora’s wrist, a sad reminder of what could have been in another universe.

"It was a complex spell," Katara said to Asami. "No easy feat to achieve, making a nine-year-old girl forget what she had seen. I had to trick your mind into filling in the blanks of that day with other memories: you, playing hide-and-seek with your mother in the garden. You, practicing your Japanese with Yasuko, writing out words on flash cards. Simple, everyday things like that."

"What will happen when I remember?"

Katara’s face was impassive, difficult to read. "I don’t know," she said. "I have never done something like this before. Which is why I need Jinora here with me."

Jinora shot Asami one of her shy smiles. She did not have to speak, but Asami felt her presence peep in the back of her mind, like a friendly wave. Asami tried to return the smile properly, but it felt more like she was simply pulling her lips away from her teeth, exposing her gums in a dying grimace.

*

Downstairs, Yasuko sat on the couch in the living room, stirring restlessly at a cup of tea. The water was brewed too hot, its steam dampening her face. She sighed, rubbed her eyes, then placed the cup onto the coffee table. A door was slamming in her skull, the beginnings of a migraine.

"Aren’t you coming upstairs?" Kuvira asked her. She had just finished moving a corrugated sheet of iron over the door to the porch; the air seemed to murmur around her head, causing the dark flyaways around her ears to stand on end. The feeling of magic was evaporating, receding back into her pores, but in that brief moment Kuvira’s face was still illuminated, the forces that had compressed the metal together colliding and giving around the contours of her face, casting it in a flat, two-dimensional beauty.

Yasuko shook her head. She felt woozy and sick; it was too bright in here, too warm, Katara needed to fix the air-conditioning. "I’ve lived it already," she said. "This is Asami’s journey to take, and her journey alone. Kuvira," she added, as Kuvira turned to go, "nice job on the door."

Kuvira did not smile. "I don’t think it will do us much good if Azula decides to come back. Her wight-fire could probably melt through that in seconds."

"Even so," Yasuko said, "it is rare that you meet a witch with an ability such as yours. Was your mother as talented as you?"

"I don’t know. She died before I could ask her."

"I’m sorry," she said softly; she meant it.

Kuvira gave an adolescent shrug of the shoulders, a gesture that was meant to communicate to Yasuko that she didn’t really care, although she cast her gaze around the room for something to focus on, her neck flushing pink.

"Ferrokinesis," Yasuko went on, determined to fill the silence. "The ability to manipulate metal. Not only an uncommon power, but a difficult one to master, with metal being such a stubborn medium. And you seem to have quite the understanding of it."

"I knew," Kuvira blurted. Her voice rough, sharp, like jabs to the ribcage. "I knew what I was since I was like, six. Since I was in the orphanage. It always came easy to me," she added, and this time Yasuko sensed a kind of pride behind her bluntness. "Like breathing."

She made a clucking noise of approval. "My, that  _is_ young. Most witches start at around nine or ten. Would you say that makes you the strongest member of your coven?"

"Strongest?" Kuvira’s eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"In terms of your connection to Raava, is what I mean." Yasuko smiled at her plainly. "Does She speak to you, Kuvira? Does She visit you in your dreams, while you sleep? When your hands move that metal, do you feel Her also moving inside you, using your body as a conduit?"

"Um. We—we aren’t really a coven." Yasuko’s questions about Raava had spooked her; she could feel Kuvira retreating inward, putting up a cold, invisible wall. The magic was all but gone, leaving behind a flat, grey cast, like the imprint of a coffee cup on a table. "There are only four of us, and—"

"Covens are five, yes, that is true." Yasuko rubbed her eyes; another door had opened up in her head, banging violently against the undercarriage of her skull. She pressed her thumbs into her eyeballs until she saw the afterimages of her fingers, glaring on her retinas in hot, white halos. She wanted to wake up already, wanted the nightmare to end. "I tried to stop it. I tried to hide it from her, what she really was. It’s funny, isn’t it? She was drawn to you anyway."

"I—never used to believe in any of that." Kuvira’s tone was grudging, as if she didn’t like what she was saying. "But I’ve seen a lot of things tonight that’s made me question what I used to believe. What would you call it? Fate?"

"I’d call it the way we were made," Yasuko said. "Nature versus nurture, in which nature wins every time. You can’t go against it, no matter how hard you try." She lowered her thumbs from her eyes, blinking like an owl. "Are you going to take responsibility for your coven, when the time comes?"

She saw the dark eyes narrow in suspicion, saw the unformed muscles in her jaw tighten like screws. "Always."

"That’s good. Because there will come a point where you may need to. Tonight, and many nights after."

"How do you know?" Kuvira demanded. The sudden authority in her voice was startling; it was the voice of a born leader. The voice of a girl who knew had been born into this world devoid of all the wide-eyed naivety of a child, the aimless, questioning existence of a teenage girl, so uncertain of her own perceptions, her value; no, Kuvira had never been that girl. She’d said that she had always known what she was, and now, Yasuko believed her. She had scrapped and struggled and fought her way through the muck and the little betrayals to where she was with the blood still drying on her knuckles. Little betrayals, like a man’s wandering hand settling on her thigh, insults spat out of car windows from friend’s mouths, the weedling manipulations of would-be caregivers, dresses worn so thin you could poke holes through the sleeves, the nights spent at 24-hour gas stations, waiting for some soul to come out of the dark wilderness and take pity on her; little betrayals and bigger ones, all adding up and coalescing into the hard, brittle mask she wore now.

"I just know," she said, picking up her tea cup. "It’s not going to be easy for her, or Asami. Protect them both, won’t you?"

"Yes, ma’am."

She turned and bounded up the stairs, her long plait swinging behind her like a rope. Yasuko watched her go, and wondered if Kuvira really did understand the magnitude of her promise; words were always binding, even if the speaker did not mean them. Words were chains, linking people and their actions together. Teenagers, especially, sometimes had a way of saying things that they did not mean; Asami telling her mother that she did not love her father anymore, for example. It had broken Yasuko’s heart to hear that, the words tumbling out of Asami’s mouth flat and cruel, like sharp little reminders of her failure, thorns stuck to her palms; she had said them without thought, without hesitation. She hoped Kuvira understood the responsibility that her words now shackled her to. Because if she didn’t, then God help them.

God help them all.

*

"Magic is like weaving a braid," Katara said. "Our words become strands, placed one over the other, joining them together. The stronger the braid, the more complex and intricate your strands are, the stronger the spell becomes. Undoing what you have created, therefore, can be extremely difficult. Not to mention dangerous."

 _Which is why two hands are better than one,_ Jinora said suddenly, in the back of Asami’s mind. Her speech was clear and loud, and Asami gave a start at the unexpected intrusion. Jinora did not seem to notice her discomfort. _You scared me for a moment there, Asami,_ she went on cheerfully. _But I’m glad you’re okay. I knew you would be, in the end._

"Why is that?" Asami spoke aloud, so that everyone in the room turned to look at them.

 _Because you’re more powerful than you know, and He’s afraid of you_. Jinora smiled again, the metal of her braces visible just below her upper lip. She was humming under her breath, some tweeny pop song Asami only vaguely recognised. Her nails, chipped with the residue of cheap nail polish taken from the back packet of a magazine, _Seventeen_ or _Teen Vogue_ probably, drummed along the sides of the tub. _He has every right to be afraid of you, I think._

"Jinora is a very talented young girl," Katara said. "She will go back into your memories with you. She will not be there with you physically, and you won’t know she’s there, but she will watch over you, make sure you don’t fall down the proverbial rabbit hole."

"Rabbit hole?"

 _Sometimes memories can consume us,_ was Jinora’s reply. _We can get lost in them, either because we’re nostalgic for the past, or the memory is so vivid that we forget who we are. Don’t go down that hole, Asami. Otherwise you won’t come back._

"Alright. I won’t."

"You will live the memory as if you are nine years old again," Katara said. "Your physical body will remain in the present, but your mind will be cast back. Just remember, it is impossible to die in memories, no matter how real they appear."

"Good to know," Asami said. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate anything, but her stomach was churning, her tongue like a piece of dried chewing gum stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her fingers kept slipping on the sides of the bathtub, slick with condensation. Claustrophobia loomed just at the edges of her awareness, but she batted it away. _Be brave, you idiot_ , she scolded herself. Jinora’s presence in her mind was like the light of a small, welcoming fire; she gathered herself around it, like a child using her teddy bear to protect herself from the monsters under the bed.

"I’m going to count to three, and then you’re going to put your head under the water," Katara said. "Submerge your whole body. Picture yourself at a fork in the river where the water flows in a different direction. Allow yourself to be carried the other way, towards the dark swamps of the past. Let the currents guide you; do not resist the pull of the tide. If you resist, you will break."

"I can’t watch this," Korra muttered to Opal. She felt the familiar stirring in her gut, the flaring of goosebumps on her arms, the hair of her bangs disturbed, even though the window was shut and there was no breeze; the air changing, taking on a new colour, a new taste.

Asami felt it, too—a cosmic shift, the plates of reality rearranging themselves. She’d felt it before, when she was in the zone and the images were flowing out from underneath the tip of her pencil like water—like running her fingers down the spine of the universe. Jinora had shut her eyes; her fingers gripped Asami’s tightly, the thumb stroking her own, as if she could sense the nerves trembling just under Asami’s skin, the fear of the unknown—what would she see, when she looked back at her past self? The water in the tub had started to rise, dispersing around Katara’s fingers; she nodded at her encouragingly, the gold eye glasses glinting from the tip of her nose.

"On three now," she said. "One, two—"

 _Three,_ Jinora finished. Her face, Asami realised, was far away, floating above her like a balloon without a string. Katara’s, too, was rising, becoming smaller and smaller, like a tiny window of light. She was moving; she was sitting still, but she was also rushing backwards, hurtling down a dark, moving slide that dipped and curved like a river. The water lapped softly at her elbows, but in her mind the sound was as loud as waves rumbling across a beach. She was going back; rewinding through all the previous versions of herself, the Asami at prom, the Asami who had once thrown up her own medication to spite her emotionally distant father, the Asami who had lain, crying and dirt-spattered, in the centre of a desolate schoolyard, her clothes ripped, the pages of her sketchbook spilling out of her bag like cream-coloured intestines. On the other side of the pewter waves, the first Asami, the Asami at the beginning. Gangly, awkward, nine years old: the Asami who, at that age, was taller than all her classmates by a head and whose body was still growing, limbs long and knobbly like a crane’s, a body that was somewhat ill-fitting, the flesh strung tight on her bones. Nine years old, her hair a black cloud over her eyes, her mouth turned downwards in a permanent frown: she had forgotten so much.

She sank beneath the water.

*

"How long is this going to take?" Korra asked uneasily. The room was silent now, except for the random trickle of bubbles rising to the surface of the bathtub. Asami’s face was pale and ghostly underneath the water; if it weren’t for the bubbles billowing from the corners of her mouth every now and then, Korra would have thought she was dead, and she didn’t like thinking like that. Jinora’s head lolled against her chest; she had nodded off as soon as Katara had landed on ‘three’, her mind zooming far away from them, trying to keep up with Asami’s trajectory. The sight was more than a little creepy; both of them looked like figurines in a little girl’s dollhouse, frozen in place, waiting for their owner to move them again.

"As long as necessary," Katara answered unhelpfully.

*

_Katara’s flowers are in bloom._

_They lie spread before you in a colourful woven carpet, sweetening the crisp morning air with their scent. You jump off the porch, sneaking a glance over your shoulder as your feet hit the bottom step. Through the kitchen window, you can just see the upper half of your mother’s face; she sits at the table, holding her hands obediently over her eyes. Counting down: "Thirty-one, thirty-two …"_

_Perhaps it’s a little cruel to do this to her, you think suddenly. She did give me boundaries. Nowhere past the fence, that’s what she said._

_"Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven …"_

_You run around to the back of the house, towards the shed where Katara keeps all her garden tools. It is little more than a run-down shack, but it is the perfect hiding spot, with all sorts of little girl-sized nooks and crannies to hide in. You hunker down, crawling on your hands and knees until your body is wedged between the shed and the house. As you angle yourself more comfortably, you feel something brush the top of your head. You look up, and immediately recoil._

_Stretching between the gap is an enormous woven spider web. It sways delicately in the breeze like a piece of lady’s lace, but that’s not what makes your heart thump in your chest and your head grow giddy with nausea. It’s the dead bird dangling in the centre. The dead bird, trussed up in layers of web like a ghoulish woolen sweater, as big as your hand—it must have flown straight into the web and gotten tangled. You know from your science class that some species of spiders have stronger webs than others—species like the orb spider, which is native to the spirit vines. You’ve seen their webs around the house before, but never have you seen one as big as this—and never have you seen one capture a bird._

_You can’t see the spider itself, and that’s what scares you the most—you also know that spiders, even more so than little girls, can squeeze their tiny spindly bodies into almost anywhere. The fact that you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there, waiting for something else to trip the sensitive snares of its trap._

_"Ready or not, here I come!" you hear Yasuko shout._

_"That’s not a hundred, mama! You cheated!" you shout back. Your mother’s sneakers are thundering on the floorboards of the wraparound veranda—any second she’s going to come around the corner and see you crouching there. You back out from behind the shed on your hands and knees, then spring to your feet, running deeper into the garden. The flowers part lazily around you like water, their petals brushing against the skin of your bare legs. Your mind is full of the disgusting dead bird, and how big a spider would have to be to kill prey of that size with its venom—feeling itchy and jumpy, you skim frantically at your arms and hair with your hands, brushing away at strands of spider web that aren’t there._

_The white of the fence looms in front of you like a stranger’s smile, each of the pickets as bright and square as individual teeth. Without a second thought, you jump over it._

*

"Has it started?"

Korra turned to see Kuvira coming up the stairs. She was biting her nails again, the tips of her fingers reduced to bloody shreds. Kuvira offered her a tissue, but Korra refused it. She didn’t want to heal. She didn’t want the blood to go away, not this time. Although it would; the blood was already seeping back into her pores, only to be brought out again. Back and forth, like a metronome. Healed and unhealed. Dead and undead. Just once, Korra wanted to bite into her skin, and feel the crunch of bone between her teeth.

"Yes," she said tersely. Kuvira raised an eyebrow at her tone, but said nothing back. She sat down next to Opal and put an arm around her.

The bathroom door was open a crack, and just inside that rectangle of light, Katara’s figure bent over the bathtub. She had peeled away the sleeves of her dress, revealing thick, brown arms that were wrapped in white bandages. The water licked at her fingers like opalescent flames.

"On average, how long do you reckon a person can hold their breath for?" Korra asked.

Opal drew her legs up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. Kuvira stuck a cigarette in her mouth, her hands pawing at the folds of her dress for a light. The silence stretched and stretched like a rubber band. In the bathroom, Katara continued to stoke the water with her hands, kneading it like bread; the muscles in her back were also bandaged, and the bandages crinkled like paper as her body moved back and forth. Korra never got an answer.

*

_You run in the way that only nine-year old girls can: like the wind._

_You run until your eyes pulse inside your skull and there is a hot stitch in your side._

_You run until the Silver House is a white blob between the trees behind you, further. Further still. Then the vines seem to close back over it, swallowing it from view._

_You run and you feel the triumph exploding inside you, like a dissolving piece of popping candy. You’ve won! You are the winner! There’s no way your mother will be able to find you this time; she had told you stay within the confines of the fence, but you’ve disobeyed her. You’ve broken the rules. Now you know why she’s forbidden you from doing such a thing: she knows she’ll never have been able to catch you, had she let you hide past the fence. And she’s right. In half an hour you will return to the house, victorious, and force her to serve you Katara’s orange cake, freshly baked from the oven. You think now that you will ask for some dollops of ice cream with the cake, too. You’re never allowed to eat ice cream usually. Or orange cake, for that matter._

_When you are sure that you are well inside the perimeters of the forest, you stop running. Your hands come down to your knees, your tiny lungs heaving from the effort._

_"I win," you say, to no one in particular. Then you stick your tongue out. You can’t do that at home, either; if you dare pull faces at either of your parents, they’ll wonder what it is that they’ve done, where they’ve gone wrong, and you hate it._

Well, they aren’t here now, are they? _you think suddenly. You’ve already broken one sacred rule: never go past the white fence. Now that you’ve taken that first crucial step, a whole realm of attractive possibilities is suddenly within reach. You can spend the whole day exploring now. Having adventures like a normal kid. Climbing trees. Grass patches on your knees and the back of your shorts (Katara will be mortified). Eating the fruit of strange berries, smearing their juices on your face, staining your tongue purple. Swimming in the river (your mama never lets you do that, either—she always says the water is too dirty for little girls to swim in). You can stay out all night and no one will be there to stop you—_

_You spin around suddenly, gazing back over your shoulder uneasily. "Who’s there?"_

_No one answers you—although you thought, for a moment, that you heard someone walking behind you, the sounds of twigs snapping under mystery feet._ Or something _, you quickly correct yourself. The vines are full of plenty of somethings, according to your mama—poison ivy. Snakes. Even bears._

_"Hello?" you call out. Your voice shoots straight through the gaps in the trees, straight as an arrow, and disappears, as if absorbed by the vines._

_For the first time, you notice how unnaturally close the trees are to one another; they stand side by side like sardines, each one the exact same shape and size. Their low-hanging branches crowd around you like eager relatives waiting to pinch your cheek and tell you how much you’ve grown._

_Your mama likes to tell you about the bad things that happen to people who get lost in the woods. She’s told you stories—tourists going missing, campsites destroyed, their belongings found abandoned in the shelter of a tree, covered in bloody handprints. She likes to tell you that you’ll get lost, too, if you dare go in the vines by yourself, and then what will you do?_

_"Bullshit," you say. It feels good to swear, too. It feels natural. "I can take care of myself."_

_Your face breaks into a grin. It takes more than a stupid ghost story to scare you. You know what fear is—you look at it in the eye every day, when you wake up in the morning and force yourself to go to school instead of faking sick so you can stay in bed all day. Compared to that, snakes and bears are nothing._

*

"How long has it been, thirty seconds?" Korra whispered restlessly. "A minute? She can’t be under there for much longer, surely."

In the bathtub, a single large bubble escaped Asami’s open mouth, rising to the surface. Her face twitched; beneath the thin flaps of her eyelids, her eyes had started to move.

*

_The tree is the tallest tree you’ve ever seen, and possibly the oldest. It stands next to the riverbank, guarding it like a fairytale troll guarding treasure. Syrupy strings of blood-coloured sap coats the trunk; its roots are as thick as your waist, descending into the hungry waters of the river like the humps of a whale._

_You don’t know how long you stand there, looking at it. It could be minutes; it could be hours. You don’t know; you never know, when the feeling comes. It begins in the tips of your fingers first. Like a breath of wind—only there is none, on this cloudless, windless day. Your nerves are jangling, singing like disturbed chimes._

_You crouch at the base of the tree, and your skin grows cold as you stand in its shadow. Here, the river sounds oddly distorted, as if you are listening to it through a tin tube. And, suddenly, you are not looking at the tree, but looking_ inside _it: you see all the days and the years and the seasons carved in golden rings around the inside of its trunk, spirallng into oblivion, around and around, like an eye. Or a wheel. You hear the wind coming off those spiral hallways in hoarse gasps, and it almost sounds like a voice._

_Your fingers are tingling, burning. You lower them to the pocket of your shorts, where you always keep a scrap of paper and pencil, just in case. It started out as an odd compulsion at first—now it’s just force of habit. You never know when the urge will overtake you—on the train, at school, sometimes in the middle of the night—all you know is, once it starts, there’s no way to get it to stop until you draw. And draw. And draw._

_Trembling, you flatten the paper out onto the grass. The burn in your fingertips is almost painful now; you think of the time you blithely pressed your hand over the iron while it was still hot, deaf to Katara’s warning shriek. Your pencil stub scratches at the paper, etching in the outline of the tree. All at once, a sour, metallic taste bursts in your mouth, like you’ve just licked a battery. The burning in your fingers fades, and you sit back on your heels to admire your work._

_"Still not right."_

_The words spill from your mouth—monotone, as if you are sleep talking—but you don’t hear them. Your attention is zeroed in on the drawing of the tree; never mind that you are cold from sitting in the shade for too long; never mind that your shoes and bare knees are coated in mud, and some of it’s in your socks, too; right now, you can only see the tree. And there’s something not quite right about it._

_You lower your pencil, scribbling furiously. You can feel the tingling building again, rising like a black wave, threatening to overwhelm you. You scribble and scribble until it recedes; you scribble until you have worn the pencil down to the nub._

_Finally, you look behind you._

_A fawn stands at the edge of the trees, watching you with wet, glossy eyes._

_You know it’s a fawn because it doesn’t have antlers; you also know it’s a fawn because you_ drew _it. At the base of the roots of the tree, you’ve drawn a fawn, lowering its head to drink from the river. As far as you know, fawns aren’t native to the spirit vines, unlike orb spiders. That doesn’t matter to you, though, does it? You figured it out a long time ago._

_'My little Van Gogh', your mother calls you fondly._

*

"Would you stop that?" Kuvira snapped.

"What?" Korra demanded. She was flexing her knuckles, rolling the muscles in her shoulders until they all heard the pistol shot cracks of her bones. She was angry, impatient, and scared out of her wits for Asami, Kuvira knew. A scared Korra was not a Korra to be messed with, nor taken lightly.

"Stop _that_ ," she said. "It’s making me jumpy."

"Is it? Well, that’s ‘cause _I’m_ jumpy," Korra snapped back. Stretched her hands above her head, revealing forearms honeycombed in muscle. Preening like a goddamn peacock. "Deal with it."

"I hope Asami’s okay in there," whispered Opal.

"Don’t worry," Kuvira said. "It’s just a memory. It can’t hurt her."

She wondered if Opal could tell that she was lying.

*

_"Come here, girl."_

_You hold out your hand, and the fawn takes a hesitant step forward. It is the most beautiful creature you have ever seen; its fur is speckled with white blotches, and its hooves look like they are made of black velvet. Its nose twitches as it dips its head towards you._

_You look down at the drawing; the paper is clenched inside your tight fist. You don’t remember doing that, either. You unclench your fist and roll the paper flat, then hold it up to the light, so that it is next to the fawn. A living, breathing thing, born from pencil and paper. You’ve never done that before. It’s been flowers, mostly—you’ll draw a rose and then watch one blossom over the palm of your hand. But something that is truly alive—a creature of flesh and blood—you didn’t think you had it in you._

_Slowly, you stretch out your other hand. You don’t know why—something compels you to, just like some other force compelled you to draw the tree. You watch as the fawn tilts its long neck forwards, seemingly unafraid of your touch—but why would it be? It is an extension of you, after all._

_The fawn’s pink tongue rasps against the skin of your palm, and you startle yourself by laughing. There comes another sound from behind you—a single report. Like the firecrackers your father likes to set off during Chinese New Year. You light the ends, and then they start popping and banging in short, sharp bursts. But you know the sound is not a firecracker; it is the sound of someone clapping their hands. One single clap: the fawn collapses at your feet like a sack of laundry. It is dead, you realise. Dead as a doornail._

_For a moment, you do not react; not because you are scared, but because you don’t understand what just happened. The fawn had been yours, you had brought it to life with the tip of your pencil, and now it lies dead less than a foot away from you, its pink tongue flopping out of the corner of its mouth like a piece of undercooked meat. Any other girl would be scared; but you, Asami Sato, just stare at the corpse with a kind of bewildered curiosity. Bringing life into a vessel is one thing; you have never been able to take it away, nor have you tried to. This is an entirely new development, a new layer to your processing of things. Death, not life: how can that be? How did you do it?_

_Then you look up, and see a man standing behind you, shielding his face from the sun with his hand. You didn’t even hear him walk up; you cannot fathom where he could have possibly come from, the edge of the woods being within your line of sight the whole time. He could have dropped out of the sky for all you know._

_"Why, it’s a little witch girl!" he exclaims, in a deep, booming voice. "Imagine that! Are we well met, witch girl?"_

_Even though you didn’t hear him approach, the man looks like he’s been walking for a very long time. The legs of his jeans are dusty and covered in mud. His skin is tanned to the point of brown, stretching over his cheeks like dried leather. His hair is long and sun-bleached, hanging down his back, as pale as straw. But then you notice the strangest thing: that although his jeans are filthy, his feet are bare, and completely clean._

_"You didn’t answer my question, witch girl," he says, lowering his hand from his eyes. It is then that you see just how tall he is: taller than your mother, even your father. "Are we well met?"_

_Your mother’s warnings are echoing in your head, wild stories of tourists disappearing in the woods and little girls being snatched off the doorstep by bears and strange lights hovering over the trees at night._ Beware, Asami, _Yasuko whispers._ Beware.

_"I-I-I’m sorry, sir," you stammer, trying not to sound as afraid as you suddenly feel. "M-m-my mom said I wasn’t allowed to talk to strangers."_

_"Your mother is very wise," the tall man says, nodding seriously; yet you sense, hiding just beneath the surface of his slightly bloodshot eyes, a small glimmer of laughter. "But! I would not be a stranger to you if you knew my name, would I?"_

_"Your—your name?" you squeak. The collar of his white shirt is open, and you can see the edge of a tattoo, drawn into his brown skin in red ink. It looks like a trickle of blood._

_"Yes, in polite company, traditionally two people will introduce themselves to one another," the tall man says. He raises a finger to his chin, wearing an expression of mocking thoughtfulness. "That way they are no longer strangers. Wouldn’t you agree?"_

_"I—I guess so."_

_"If you guess so, then I will tell you my name, and you can tell me yours." The tall man walks towards you, and instinctively, you take a step back. His feet should have slipped on the tough little weeds that line the river bank, but they do not; nor do they leave any tracks behind him. Where his feet touch—or seem to touch—there is not a single crushed leaf, broken twig, or footprint._

_He hunkers down in front of you, his knees popping just as the knees of any ordinary man might, but when he moves his hands so that they dangle in between his legs, you see that he has no knuckles, no creases in his palms. His hands are as featureless as the hands of the dummies displayed in shopping mall windows. As he leans forwards, you catch a whiff of a powerful smell steaming off him, and you start to gag. It is the smell of man sweat—and, just below it, something worse, thick and cloying and rotten. When he opens his lips in a smile, you see that his teeth are slightly pointed, like a cat’s._

_"I am Vaatu, brother of Raava, also known as the Two-Faced God, He Who Eats the Light, the Lord of the Flies. I am the Antichrist, you got me in a vendetta kind of mood."_

_He throws back his enormous blonde head and laughs wildly. His laughter arcs up into the trees, and you watch as a startled flock of water birds suddenly rise into the sky, hundreds of them, so that they almost black out the sun: your ears throb with the sound of their panicked, shrieking cries, the frantic beat of their wings. A slow-moving horror is steadily growing inside you: that laugh is the sound of a lunatic, filled with knives._

_The tall man is the Devil._

_The thought pops into your head, unbidden, and you don’t even believe in God or the Devil but you’re so scared that it’s the only thing that makes sense to you. Perhaps if you were older then you’d know better, but you aren’t: you are only nine, and you know the truth when it hunkers down in front of you. You disobeyed your mother, and as punishment, the Devil walked out of the Spirit Vines and killed your fawn. He killed your fawn and he’s going to kill you, too._

_"It’s your turn now, witch girl."_

_The tall man extends his palm towards you expectantly. You see that now his hands have changed: they look like ordinary man hands, with large, knobbly knuckles and the deep crevasses of life lines. Did you imagine that his hands really were smooth and boneless, like store dummy hands, or was it an illusion of the light reflecting off the river? Neither, you think. He’s trying to trick me. You don’t believe in God or the Devil but you know in all the stories that the Devil is the father of lies. You decide to play along with his masquerade. He can’t know that you know, otherwise he’ll just kill you quicker._

_"My name is Asami," you say. Sweet and ladylike; your parents would be so proud. "Daughter of Yasuko and Hiroshi. How do you do?"_

_You have to repress your shudder when his fingers touch yours: it is like touching the cold scales of a snake._

_"Now we are well met," Vaatu says, in his deep baritone. His bloodshot eyes roam over you, and you swear you can feel the force of his gaze, slowly peeling you apart. You feel a bizarre urge to cover your chest with your hands, even though you are fully clothed._

_"Please don’t hurt me," you whisper suddenly. The smell coming off him is stronger now, fluffing into your face by the breeze; it takes all your effort not to throw up your breakfast all over the roots of the tree. It is like standing in front of an open sewer after an enormous flood: foul beyond imagining._

_"What is this?" Vaatu booms, as if he didn’t hear you; but he did, you are sure of that, he did hear you. His head is turned towards the dead fawn, and something in his eyes seems to ignite as he assesses the corpse. He points to the odd angle of the creature’s broken neck, and when he does, you see that his hands have changed again: the fingers have lengthened, and are now tipped with long, black claws, like talons of a bird of prey._

_"Did you do this, Asami?" he asks you, in a quiet, solemn voice. All the while silent laughter dances in his red eyes like a hot oil, as if he is having a private joke at your expense. "Oh, you bad girl. You bad, bad, girl."_

_"No!" you say. You are on your feet; you can’t remember when you stood up, but there’s a part of you that understands that something in his eyes_ made _you stand up. That is perhaps the most frightening thing about him: when you look in his blazing eyes, all the fight in you seems to wilt, making you as soft and pliable as clay. "It wasn’t me, I didn’t—"_

_"Light as a feather, stiff as a board!" he crows, getting on his knees. His nostrils flare as they seek the soft flesh of the fawn’s exposed belly; you watch the glaring eyes close, as if he has inhaled some sublime substance and wants to concentrate on nothing but that. His lips pull back again, the teeth showing themselves in a cannibal smile: his face contorts into a monstrous look of inhuman greed as he looks up at you. "Do you cross your heart and hope to die, before I stick a needle in your eye?"_

_"No," you say robotically, again and again. "It wasn’t me, it wasn’t—"_

_"What a terrible liar you are," he interrupts slyly. "I know you, Asami. I know your thoughts, your dreams, all of your deepest, darkest desires—"_

_"You don’t know me at all!" you blurt out; only when the words leave your mouth do you realise how childish you sound._

_He only smiles—sad and patient, as if he is used to the accusations of petulant children who never know any better._

_"I know you," he says, "because I_ am _you, Asami. Saying otherwise won’t make it untrue. That simply does not hold water, I’m afraid. Brutality is in your blood."_

_He lowers his head back to the corpse of the fawn, and you see something awful: where his shadow passes over the riverbank, the grass beneath it turns yellow and dies._

*

A loud splash caused Korra to jerk her head upwards. She’d been dozing, dreaming of Nina again. Sitting on her sun-stifled bed, watching her ink the coordinates of their first night together into the skin of her ankle. _This is going to hurt, you know that, right_? she had said, in stilted English. Korra had only shrugged.

"What the hell was that?" she muttered. Kuvira was perched by the door on her knees, watching the scene unfold within.

"She’s kicking," she said.

"What? She’s still under?"

Korra made to push past her, but Kuvira blocked the doorway. "If you go in there and interrupt the ritual, you might hurt Asami," she said, in a tone that brokered no argument. "Let it play out."

"Fuck you," Korra said. She tried to pry Kuvira’s fingers off her, but it was no use; Kuvira was simply too strong, and she had always outweighed Korra by at least ten pounds.

"Let it play out," was all Kuvira said. Korra hated the brusqueness in her voice, the distance of it, as if Kuvira didn’t care at all what Katara was doing to Asami. But she did care; they all did.

"This is fucked up," she said, sliding back down next to Opal. Inside the bathroom, the sounds of splashing had grown louder. Asami was kicking, alright; bucking and kicking like a drowning woman. Through the gap in the door Korra could see Katara bending over the bathtub, holding her down, while her legs flailed and sent water rushing onto the floor. It wasn’t something she wished to ever see again.

*

_"I'm starving," Vaatu says. He arranges his body so that he is sitting cross-legged next to the fawn, as if this is part of a normal conversation the two of you are having in the woods. "Do you want to know what my whore sister did to me, Asami? She abandoned me, sealed me away. I spent ten thousand years on the sidelines, while she flaunted her powers in this world and created a legion of simpering followers who repeated everything back to Her and did everything She told them to, like a pack of trained circus animals. Ten thousand years is a long time to go without eating anything, no?"_

_He is gripping the fawn’s neck with both hands, wringing it like a piece of wet linen. There is a loud, wet crack; you close your eyes just as blood sprays onto his face in a fine mist, your stomach turning over with a sickening lurch._

_"I'm just_ so _hungry," he continues. His voice, dark and seductive, pulls at you like a hook, and you open your eyes, although you don’t want to—you know what he’s going to do, you don’t want to have to watch but he’s making you, he could tell you to step off a cliff and you wouldn’t even realise what you’d just done until you hit the ground—you open your eyes and see him stretching his mouth wide, too wide for a normal human being. You think of the time you went to an aquarium for school and lined up with the rest of your classmates so you could each step inside the jaw circumference of the Great White shark skeleton they had on display in the lobby, giggling with half-suppressed terror. Looking into Vaatu’s mouth is like looking into the open jaws of the world’s largest Great White shark: his gullet is a black hole, a hole with no end. "You know what I’m going to do, Asami? I’m going to eat this deer, and then I’m going to eat you, too. I’m going to eat you and your mother and that dratted housekeeper of yours. The three of you, all together, like the three little pigs! I’m going to kill you all and tear you open and eat your guts! What do you think of that?"_

_You try to say please, no, but the words get stuck in your throat; all that comes out is a low gurgling noise. You feel like you are slowly sinking beneath the red heat of his eyes, suffocating like a mosquito in amber._

_With a darting, animal quickness, Vaatu buries his face in the fawn’s neck. The muscles in his back ripple hideously as he feeds; you hear monstrous crunching noises, the popping of breaking bones. He is tearing the fawn apart as easily as a leopard tearing into an antelope. You want to look away, but you can’t; the sight is so exquisitely horrible you can’t possibly look away. Guttural grunts and barks echo from the back of his throat; not the sounds of any animal on Earth, let alone any man, but something huge and predatory, a creature from the primordial ooze of a prehistoric world …_

_"Meat!" he cries. His mouth is full when he raises his head again, his cheeks bulging outwards like a chipmunk’s; a string of bloody tendon dangles obscenely from the corner of his lips. "Fresh meat, oh, so very fresh! Yum, yum, pig’s bum!"_

_He is changing, you see suddenly. His face is narrower, meaner; his eye sockets are shrinking back into his skull, becoming pinpricks, his irises welling like pools of fresh blood. His teeth are sharper, longer, his lips pulled all the way back to expose his gum lines. Worse, even worse: his body swells as he eats, fattening off the blood of the fawn. He is like a leech, you think: feeding off the magic that brought the fawn to life, gorging himself on your power, the light that dwells within you. You hate him for it. You fear him, too, but mostly, you hate him for killing your fawn, and then for blaming it on you. Tears burn in the corners of your eyes. How dare he? The gift of life—_ your _gift—how dare he destroy something so sacred?_

_Your mother is screaming at you in your head, telling you to run, but you don’t hear her. What good is running from the Devil? As soon as he finishes eating your fawn, it will be your turn. And your mother’s. And then Katara’s. You know that the dying part won’t be the worst part, either. It will be the part that comes after, when you're inside his belly._

*

"Korra, stay back!" Kuvira shouted. She grabbed Korra under the arms as Korra came barging into the bathroom. Katara did not turn around; she was busy fighting with Asami, trying to keep her from breaking the surface of the water.

"Let go of me!" snarled Korra. She twisted and struggled, her shoes scuffing the floor as she fought to stop Kuvira from dragging her back outside. "You’re killing her!" she screamed at Katara; her eyes were wild, like an animal’s, her hair hanging across her face. "No— _Asami—_ "

"If you stop the ritual now, you’ll do worse than kill her!" Kuvira panted through gritted teeth. She lifted Korra off the ground, pinning her to the wall like a butterfly to a corkboard. "Now—stay— _BACK_!"

Inside the bathtub, Asami was no longer visible; the water had swallowed her entirely. The water was rising, up, up, towards the ceiling. Jinora was shaking, her whole body wracked all over by unearthly tremors; the hand that held onto Asami’s arm had turned into a claw. Her eyes were closed and she was far away but she was whispering, under her breath, the same phrase, over and over: "Come home come home come home come home."

*

_"You’re a lying son of a bitch."_

_The words drip through your lips like acid. You are well aware, on some distant level, that you need to run, to run back to the house as fast as you can to warn your mother, but your rage is roaring in your chest like a gathering storm, blocking out all fear, smothering all survival instinct._ My _fawn, you think. She was mine, you greedy, murdering bastard._

_He doesn’t seem to hear you; he seems to be taking his time, slowly and indulgently licking the blood off each of his clawed fingers. "What did you say?" he says finally, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His shirt is no longer white, but almost black, covered in a bib of gore. "What did you call me, Asami Sato?"_

_"I said, you’re a lying son of a bitch," you repeat, slowly enunciating each word. It gives you great satisfaction to call the Devil a son of a bitch; your heart is thumping rapidly in your chest, and you’re sure he can hear it: ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Your heart is going so fast you could almost_ dance _to the beat, you’re that fired up. "_ You _killed my fawn! I didn’t do anything! I just brought it out of the drawing and—and—and you—"_

 _Vaatu only grins at you, his eyes filled with evil, dancing mirth. "Do you hate me?" he croons. "Because you’re right. I did kill your fawn. I just couldn’t help myself. My sister is always such a show-off, you know. You remind me so much of Her. Both of you violate every law of the universe just by existing. I can’t forgive that. Oh, no. I simply_ can’t _forgive that."_

_He stands up, walking towards you and bending down so that you are eye-level: when his shadow touches you, you begin to shiver. You can’t help it; he makes you feel so cold. So very cold._

_Vaatu purses his lips, as if he is about to whistle, and blows on your face. It is only a little breath, but the stink of it causes you to gasp out loud; you stagger away from him, tears flowing freely from your eyes now, your hands clasped to your mouth in a silent movie expression of utter horror. "What was that?" you stammer. "That—that sound—"_

_Deep down, you don’t even have to ask. Deep down, you know. What you heard wafting out of the depths of his throat was the sounds of a thousand restless souls, trapped, damned for all eternity. That inside the red heat of his eyes, shifting and twisting like flames, people—men, women, and children, all dead, yet still alive somehow—are screaming._

_"Death is a house of many doors." His voice flows from his throat like river water gone stagnant, thick and bubbling. His skin is darkening; the black colour of his nails is rising up his arms, spreading across his body like a bottle of spilled ink. You are crying as you back away from him, crying soundlessly as your body hits the trunk of the tree, leaving you nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He towers over you, nearly eight feet tall, his eyes beaming across your face like crimson headlights, the black creeping up his cheeks, rising off him like curls of smoke. His skin is moving, too: you get the feeling that the souls are not just inside him—they_ are _him, and if you were to touch him, you would feel all those tortured lives passing through your fingertips like beads in a necklace. "Don’t be afraid, witch girl. Remove thy mask of servitude to my sister, and come inside."_

_Your mind is flying, flying, trying to find something, anything to use; you think of that poor dead bird, and how it must have struggled in a useless attempt to free itself from the spider’s web. How afraid it must have been, the bleating panic, like tolling, crashing bells. Struggling, struggling, even as the spider advanced, with the venom dripping from its pincers and its eight eyes rolling in its head. You will not be that bird. As soon as you think the thought, it becomes a reality: you feel, with a sense of things clicking into place, your mind landing, seizing another thought— then hurling it from your mouth without a second hesitation._

_"Oranges and Lemons!"_

_He recoils away from you, a look of blank surprise rapidly shattering his face like a rock thrown through glass. The black smoke rising from his arm halts, hovering in mid-air uncertainly. The words had hurt him. Not enough to kill him—you don’t think the Devil can be killed. You feel the sharpened blades of your mind slowly turning, aiming outwards like arrows pulled back from an invisible bow string. For now, you decide, it is enough to hurt him._

_"Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s!" Your voice is shaking but you try to make it sound vaguely melodic; your arms rise above your head until your fingers are touching, forming an arch with your hands. "You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s—"_

_"S-stop," Vaatu says. He takes a feeble step back, and you know that he didn’t expect this. That whatever he expected when he came out of the woods and killed your fawn with a clap of his hands, it was not this. "You stop that right now, Asami."_

_But you don’t stop. You continue to sing, your voice rising and falling with the wind in a weird, rattling chorus, the words marching from your lips like soldiers into battle. Sticks and stones thrown by the other kids may break your bones, but words—words are_ your _weapons. "When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey; when I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch—"_

_"I said, stop singing!" he commands, but you hear the fear cowering in his voice now, high and whining, the fire in his eyes fading, fizzling out; he reaches for your throat with his talons but you duck under him, sliding over the roots of the tree and out the other side where you are finally out of his shadow. Now, you think: now, the tables are turned. Your roles have reversed: he is trapped inside the protective roots of the tree, and you are advancing on him._

_"When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney. I do not know, says the great bell of Bow—"_

_"STOP IT!" Vaatu’s voice rises to the pitch of a scream; he puts his claws over his face, as if in anguish. You can see the smoke flying off him now, dispersing rapidly in the wind. He is shrinking down, returning to the size of a normal man; one eye rolls up and gets stuck in his eye socket, so that he is looking at you lopsidedly, like the hunchback in Victor Hugo’s play. When he lifts his claws away from his face, he leaves a gaping hole behind, a hole that flaps like a grotesque, fleshy sail._

_"HERE COMES A CANDLE TO LIGHT YOU TO BED!" you chant; your voice rises, rises even as he shrinks; you can feel something inside you growing, removing you from fear, removing you from your rage—you point a finger at his face, and feel your mind surge forwards in a furious, whirring storm, raising the hairs on your arm to needle points. "HERE COMES A CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD! CHIP CHOP CHIP CHOP THE LAST MAN IS DEAD!"_

_There is a flash of bright, white light from your fingertip, and Vaatu howls as it hits him smack bang in the face. He doubles over, his talons gouging long marks down his cheeks; between the gaps blood, as red as rubies, starts to pour, pattering on the grass like rain._

_It is the sight of those bloody tears that gives you your body back. You bolt away from the oak tree like a rabbit released from a trap, scrambling up the riverbank, using the weeds as handholds. He is still howling behind you, and then the texture of his howls change, deepen—as you reach the tree line, his howls turn into a thunderous, beast-like roar. One single note: "ASAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMIIIIIIIIIIIII…"_

_Something heavy lands on the forest floor, and you cling onto the trunk of the nearest tree for dear life as the ground shakes. You do not dare look back; you can still hear that weight still unfurling on the riverbank where you left him, and you know that to look back will drive you to the edge of hysteria. He is coming after you. The sounds of tree trunks splitting, bushes being pulled by their roots and tossed aside follow you as you sprint further into the woods, back the way you came. At every step you expect to feel his cold, hands slither around your neck, pulling you back into a final embrace—_

_Something catches on your ankle, making you slip to your knees. Looking over your shoulder, you see the tall man at your heels, his brown root of a face pulled into a convulsion of fury and greed, his shark’s mouth hanging open like a trapdoor. Something is unraveling from his lips, running down onto the grass in a black ribbon. It holds onto your ankle, pulling you backwards, towards the maw of his teeth. And then you realise the black ribbon is his tongue. His tongue, cold and clammy, streaked through with red, cutting into your skin, tasting your flesh._

_"Witch!" he snarls, the words coming out slightly garbled. He jerks his head backwards violently, sending you rolling down the bank. Your hands close around weeds, wildflowers, tree roots, each whipping in and out of your reach—then, finally, the flat, smooth surface of a rock. As Vaatu hauls you backwards, his mouth widening to swallow you whole, you lift the rock like a softball pitcher at the plate, and slam it down on the black tongue wrapped around your ankle, crushing it into the dirt, crushing it to jelly._

_He makes a strangled, outraged noise, the dangling, torn remains of his tongue zipping back into his mouth like measuring tape flying back into its holder. Screaming like a wild thing, you pick up another rock and, without bothering to aim, hurl it at him clumsily. The second rock hits him in the stomach, sending him tumbling backwards onto his rump: a sight that would be almost comical, if you weren’t so afraid. The top of the riverbank is inches away from your face: you throw yourself over the summit, filling your hands with prickles and bumping your head so hard you see stars. You lurch to your feet, stumbling once, then breaking into a sprint, zig-zagging through the trees, leaping over ditches, slitting your eyes against the onslaught of thorny branches that whip into your face as you push past._

_"Run, Asami!" Vaatu roars from behind you. He sounds furious, but he also sounds as if he is laughing. "Run, little piggy! I’ll give you a head start, shall I? I’ll count to a hundred!"_

_"Leave us alone!" you scream over your shoulder._

_It feels like your feet only touch the ground with every third or fourth step; you run straight through the trees towards the Silver House, your temples throbbing, your thighs burning, the hot stitch in your side returning with a vengeance. You can see the white picket fence now, and, just beyond, the shape of your mother’s floppy straw hat. It is the sight of your mama that causes you to break: you start to cry her name at the top of your lungs, half-screaming, half-sobbing. You see your mother turn, see a look of shock—and fear—cross her face like a dark cloud. You sink to the ground, still crying; Yasuko throws aside her straw hat without so much as a downward glance and runs to you, the fastest you’ve ever seen her run in your entire life._

_"Asami, what is it? What happened? Are you alright?"_

_"Th-th-the tall man!" you sob. "The tall man came out of the woods and killed my fawn and said he was going to kill you, too! His eyes were all bloodshot and he had claws on his hands and he—he—he’s the—the—"_

Devil _is the word you meant to say, but by then the breath in your chest is hitching so bad you can’t get it out. More tears start flowing again, blurring your mama’s startled, frightened face into overlapping images._

_"Oh, baby," she says. She bends down and wraps her arms around your shoulders; you bury your hot face into her belly, smearing snot and tears all over the fabric of her sundress. "I told you not to go out there, didn’t I?"_

_"I know! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! But he’s coming, Mama, he said—"_

_"Yasuko? What’s going on?"_

_Katara is limping towards you through the flowers, her eyes crinkled into commas of worry. Behind her, you can see a steely grey sky gathering over the river, the first storm clouds. A cold wind is rising, a wind that is about as natural as snowfall in summer: you know it is the fingers of the tall man, stealing into the garden, pulling his darkness across the sky like a shawl, tangling in your hair. "Oh God," you whisper. "He’s coming, mama, he’s coming!"_

_Both the women seem to feel it, too: the cold whisper gathering in the garden like the voice of an evil sprite, making the sunlight fail, evaporating all warmth from the air. Katara’s face is very still, but her lips are moving, her teeth working into the inside of her cheek. She tears her eyes away from the darkening sky to exchange a glance with Yasuko. Your mother’s fingers, you notice, have suddenly tightened into a bruising grip around you, as if she does not ever, ever want to let you go again._

_"How is it possible?" Yasuko whispers; her lips have gone deathly white. "How did he break the seal?"_

_"Only through an act of depraved evil." Katara_ _sets down her cane and places her hand on the gate of the fence. Through the gaps in the trees, you hear a new sound, rising with the wind: a low, muttering hum. Cicadas. Thousands of them; the air is thick with the vibration of their singing. Katara puts a finger to her lips, licks it, and then raises it into the air. "_ _I'll hold him off," she says. "You take Asami and get out of here. Run for your lives."_

 _"I—what? No!" says Yasuko, suddenly angry. "You think I’m going to let you face him, Katara? After what you’ve done for this family—no, look at me!" Her voice breaks on the last syllable, making Katara turn around. "If there's anything we have learned, it is that the Black Goat's hunger is insatiable. He will come for her, and He will keep coming. He will not stop until He has a taste of her. I know what I must do._ You _stay here with Asami."_

_She walks back past you, picking up the straw hat she discarded on the ground, bundling it to her chest. Then, she lowers it onto your head, her face coming down to meet yours. You are crying again: you don’t know what she was talking about with Katara, but something about the conversation scares you to death._

_"Mama?" Your voice is weak; the tears stream down your face as you fight to keep her in focus._

_"I’ll be back, baby, I promise," Yasuko says soothingly. "What kind of sick individual would say such terrible things to a little girl, I can’t imagine—don’t you worry, I’ll give him a good telling off."_

_"B-b-but you c-can’t!" you cry, as she stands up again. "Mama—he’s the Devil, he’ll k-k-kill you!"_

_"She’s right, Yasuko," Katara says. "Think about what you’re doing. What do you have to offer him, apart from your soul?"_

_"Oh, I’m sure we can work something out," Yasuko says. She sounds cheerful in a way that makes you sick to your stomach, because it sounds like she’s trying to hold back tears at the same time. "He won't kill me. We all have our price, even the Devil."_

_"Don’t go!" you plead. "Mama, please don’t go—"_

_She only smiles at you, sadly, and leans forward to plant a kiss on your forehead. Then she pushes on the gate with her hand, opening it with a grinding creak. You feel Katara’s hands descend upon your shoulders, pulling you away, but you can’t, you can’t look away, because your mother is walking past the white fence, towards the vines—you start to scream then, because you understand that she’s really going to find the tall man, and when she does, he will eat her up and she will become a part of him just like the rest, and you will never see her smile ever again—_

_"Come on, Asami," Katara says. She, too, is wearing that voice of horrible false cheerfulness, as if nothing is wrong, as if your mother didn’t just walk into the woods right where the Devil Himself is waiting for her. "Come on, baby, let’s go inside. It’s going to rain."_

_"No!" you shriek, pushing her away. You stumble over to the fence on your tired, sprung legs, swaying in the dirt like a drunken sailor. "Mama! Mama, come back! COME BACK!"_

_The rain begins to fall then, hard and pelting. Forks of lightning flash across the sky, but there is no thunder: just silent flashes of white-blue electricity. You raise your head, up to the trees, and realise that it’s not lightning you’re seeing, but lights. Bobbing through the trees like globes of St. Elmo’s fire, bouncing and flaring once, then fading, then flaring up again in one bright burst. Katara’s hands clamp over your eyes as they come closer, shielding you from the strongest flashes._

_"Don’t look at the lights, Asami," she says. "Those are spirit world lights. They can make you go blind, if you look at them for too long."_

_The rain is falling in a sweeping, relentless curtain; you are still crying, reaching for the fence, crying for your mama—you are certain that if you keep calling her name she will pop up out of nowhere with her sun hat askew and smudges of dirt on her nose, a wide grin on her face as she tells you about all the pretty orchids she found on her walk—but she doesn’t, and the rain keeps falling, and Katara pulls you into her lap, so that the two of you are sitting on the porch, watching the turmoil rage over the river and the treetops and waiting for Yasuko to return._

*

"She’s coming back!” Korra heard someone shout—Katara. "Someone get Yasuko! She’s coming—"

A grinding, splintering crash—the sound of shattering porcelain—caused Korra to jump to her feet. She expected Kuvira to hold her back, but Kuvira was already at her side, her eyes popping as she took in the scene; when Korra opened the door fully, she saw why. The bathtub had sprung a leak; a large crack was opening up in its side, and water was streaming through the gap, flooding the floor in an ankle-deep deluge. She heard someone scream—herself or Kuvira, she wasn’t sure, it all happened so quick—but even before she could run to Asami, Yasuko was stepping past her, into the bathroom. Yasuko threw herself down by the tub, taking hold of her daughter’s shoulders as Asami’s head finally broke the surface—she jerked straight up in the tub, her hair dripping across her face, her chest heaving, taking in huge, great gasps of air as she stared at her mother with a new and never ending knowledge running through her eyes.

"It's okay," Yasuko was saying. "It's okay, you’re okay, it’s over. You’re home. I'm so sorry. I'm not going to put you through that ever again."

"It was you," Asami whispered, gazing up at her. The knowledge in her eyes seemed to have taken possession over her whole body: she reached forward and gripped her mother’s arms, the memory water running off her body in streams as she returned, slowly, to the present day. "You saved me. You—you’re a witch."

"I was. Not anymore, though." Yasuko’s mouth twitched into a sad shadow of a smile; Korra had never seen a woman who looked so broken, and struggled to imagine what it would be like to be without her powers: to be without that part of her that had kept her alive, for so long, over hundreds of years. It would be like losing a limb, traumatic, irreversible: she felt Yasuko’s sadness then, the ghost of the person she had been, felt her loss of Raava as keenly as if it had been her who had been torn apart and put back together again all wrong. "That was my price to pay. I had no choice. I did it in exchange for you, my love. I did it all for you."


	20. Yasuko

“They came in the night.”

Yasuko’s voice was calm and steady, betraying not a hint of emotion or hesitation. She seemed resigned to the events of the night, that which had since spiralled out of her control; or maybe she was just exhausted, as Asami was; as Katara was, and Korra, and Jinora, Kuvira, Opal. But there would be no sleep for them from now on, Asami knew.

“I don’t remember how many there were.” Yasuko’s hands were rough, yanking at the sash of Asami’s dressing gown, fastening it tighter around her body. “All I remember is the fire. I shall never forget it. Sometimes I still hear it in my dreams, the _sound_ of it, like the howling of a great wolf … I knew the flames were alive, and they hungered for me … and the cries of my loved ones.”

Her eyes flickered to Asami’s face, and they didn’t look like her mother’s eyes, so bright and always twinkling with mischief; they were open pits in her skull, haunted by memories. 

“The blaze killed four of our own. Kya, Katara’s oldest daughter; Suki, her sister-in-law; Sokka, her brother; and Aang, her great love. I thought I’d lost you, too … I had been badly injured in the attack, and when I woke up in the hospital I feared the worst …” She placed her hand on the flat of her stomach. “But it was only my coven Azula had destroyed. I suppose, for that small mercy, I should be thankful.”

The pages of the photo album seemed to curl in Asami’s hands as she turned them, careful not to disturb the yellowed photos inside. Photos she had never seen before: photos of her mother, young and lovely and heavily pregnant, of her father, of Katara, of the mansion before it burned down. In those days it had had more bedrooms, and a third floor with a swimming pool and rooftop balcony. Her great grandfather had come to Republic City a penniless immigrant, and the house had meant to be a boast of his newfound wealth: _look at me, look at me, I’m something now._ Then an unseasonably hot autumn had caught the city in its red-eyed grip; the hills surrounding the estate had been like a tinderbox waiting for a spark. So her mother had said. So her father had said, and Asami had always taken their word for it, and when the mansion was rebuilt over the ashes, concrete blanketing all signs of the destruction in a cold, grey veneer—it was the Sato way, to rebuild. Hiroshi lectured her constantly on the ‘Sato way’, the legacy she would inherit one day. It had not been in her nature to question him; Hiroshi Sato was a man of his word.

“Katara’s daughter was a witch, too?”

 “Yes. And Suki, as well. I was the youngest out of all of them, only fifteen when Katara found me, but it was like we—we’d known each other all our lives.” Yasuko reached over to the nightstand for Asami’s hairbrush. “Death by fire,” she murmured, “is the biggest fear of every witch, no matter how powerful she is. It has been used against us throughout the centuries as a method of execution; it is symbolically, spiritually, and historically connected to our ancestors’ pain and sacrifice atop the pyre … and that is why the wights use it against us. That is why they are Corrupted.”

The teeth of the hairbrush were made up of hard, sharp bristles, but Asami hardly noticed the tugging at her head. The album was weighing heavier and heavier in her hands along with her mother’s every word. _The weight of four lost lives_. She understood what Zei meant when he’d said that memories became embedded in the landscape of the Spirit Vines; memories that never died. It was grief that had possessed Katara on the riverfront, grief that had almost ripped the trees from their roots in all its fury and terrible, heart-wrenching potency. She turned the page and stared down at another photo: her mother was younger here, and not pregnant, her face flushed and rosy with sunburn. One bare arm was slung around an older woman with a strong, aquiline face and the same bright blue eyes as Katara. For a moment, Asami thought it _was_ Katara—then she realised this woman in the photo did not match up in age. _Kya, that’s Kya. Jinora’s aunt, if she’d survived._ “You, Katara, Kya, and Suki, that makes four,” she heard herself say. “Covens are five, aren’t they? Who was your fifth?”

Yasuko’s hands abruptly stilled. “They say that wights always come back to where their hearts are,” she said. “Isn’t that strange? That a creature erased of all rational thought, all emotion, all humanity, is capable of being _sentimental_?”

She switched hands, and this time the brush yanked Asami’s head sideways almost painfully, making her wince. “ _No_.”

“No,” her mother replied, in a quieter tone. “No, Azula is not sentimental. She is mad. Mad with hunger, and thirst for witch’s blood. Our coven died the day she turned on us. Raava does not forgive easily, nor does She forget.”

“Katara let her live,” was all Asami could say, weakly. Then: “You’re hurting me.”

The hairbrush withdrew. Asami reached out and took it from Yasuko hesitantly, tossing it onto the floor. She folded her legs underneath her and her mother did the same, the two of them mimicking each other’s movements deliberately. “Azula,” she began, interlocking her hands together to stop them from shaking, “— _killed_ nearly her entire family. A family that _she_ was a part of! Katara let her live … _why_?”

Again, only Yasuko’s eyes gave her away; they were looking at the pages of the photo album in Asami’s hands, looking as though they were seeing the faces inside for the first time in years. Wounded and disbelieving, as if she, her mother, still could not comprehend what had been done to them. _None of them would have believed it, back then,_ Asami thought. _If we’d gone back in time and told these happy smiling people in the photo what was rushing towards them, they would have laughed in our faces. No one ever expects that they’re going to die so soon, not like that._

“Katara believed that life … life is a burden we must all carry. Death, however—death is freedom. It wouldn’t have brought her daughter back to her, or our coven.” Yasuko’s eyes flicked away, away and up to Asami’s face. Asami didn’t know what else to do aside from take her hand. She could close the pages of the photo album and wash her memory of those faces in a heartbeat; her mother, on the other hand, would carry the weight of those four lost lives with her until the end of her days. _I should have let the river have her_ , she realised, with a surge of self-loathing. _Drowning is more than Azula deserves._

It was a long time before Asami thought to speak again; by the time she did, soft grey-gold light was creeping through the curtains. On any other day, Katara would be up at sunrise, squeezing juice from an orange she’d plucked from the garden, her maimed leg propped up on one of the cushions on the porch. Asami marvelled at how little thought she’d given the absence of Katara’s family over the years; Katara spoke of her brother and daughter in abstract, vague terms, and she never kept any photos in view of her guests. The photo album in her lap had been retrieved from the depths of the attic by her mother, and Asami suspected Katara had stowed other keepsakes up there, the only spectators to her grief ...

And then Asami’s thoughts came full circle, retreating back to the question that had been on her mind since the day outside the school gym. “Does dad know?”

“He cannot know,” said Yasuko at once. “He _cannot._ He would leave me—he _did_ leave me. Your father is ever so proud, Asami … and _logical._ For him, the sky is blue, the world is round, and night follows day … but he could not fathom a world where there is no sky at all, for example, or where the grass grows purple instead of green, and a bloody eye rises in place of a white moon …

“He saw the wights attack. He saw them with their flaming eyes and their hooked hands and the way Azula laughed as the fire burned … It broke him. When I finally told him the truth, I thought he was going to kill me, right there in my hospital bed. ‘My daughter,’ he kept saying. ‘ _What have you done to my daughter_?’”

A tear slid down Yasuko’s cheek, wet and shining under the yellow light cast by the lamp on the nightstand. “Raava forgive me,” she whispered. “I couldn’t bear it … I loved him so much, but he was going to leave me … I made him forget. I made him s-s-stay. I justified it by telling myself that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him … that he would rather be blind than see the truth… in the hospital, h-he told me I’d as good as killed you.”

She brushed at her tears with the heel of her palm, and her eyes closing briefly when Asami gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “ _Don’t_ blame him, Asami, whatever you do. He acted out of love. I … I acted out of pain, and selfishness. I couldn’t—I’d already lost my coven. I couldn’t lose you, too.”

“That’s why you stopped,” Asami said suddenly. “After that day in the vines, you stopped drawing.”

“I lost my muse.” Yasuko opened her eyes. “I lost Raava.”

Asami knew she didn’t really want to know the answer to the question she wanted to ask, but her curiosity, as always, won over common sense. “What happens when a witch loses her powers?”

“She dies, in a manner of speaking. It is said that a witch has two souls. One soul is the soul of her human self, born when she is born. A second soul is the white light that runs through her veins, the white light that was a gift from Raava when she first crossed over from the spirit world.”

Asami remembered the hideous way the tall man had gorged himself on the flesh and blood of her deer, the way his body had swollen and grown as fat as a sausage about to burst from its skin and his eyes had gleamed wetly from his skull, red raw. Memories that Katara had hidden away from her, and for good reason: he had made her feel dirty, violated. _He had no right_ , she thought. _It was my gift. It was not his to take._ Yasuko had walked into the vines of her own free will, in a desperate bid to save her only daughter’s life. Asami wondered how fat the tall man had grown then. “You let him take that from you. You let him defile you.”

“Should I have let him kill you instead?” Her mother sighed, as if she’d been expecting this reaction. “I’m still _me_ , Asami, even without my connection to Raava. Don’t make the same mistake Vaatu made in his arrogance and his greed. He thought he was condemning me. He miscalculated. If he truly wanted to _condemn_ me, he should have killed you. A strangely human mistake, for a god.” She cocked her head. “You would not judge me, if you had children of your own. Do you think I’m a bad mother?”

Asami was aghast. “ _No_!”

“I spent years wondering if I was. My coven was broken, and my powers stolen from me in a literal deal with the devil. But then I remembered that you were alive, and with me. I knew the greatest gift I had ever received was not Raava … no. It was you.” Yasuko smiled. “What a miracle you are.”

“I’m—I’m not,” Asami stammered. “I don’t even—I don’t even know how to control it, whatever it is. Sometimes it feels like it’s controlling _me_ , and I’m just an outsider, watching it happen …”

“You’re stronger than I ever was,” Yasuko insisted. “Even as a little girl, before … I’d be in my studio, painting, and you’d come running, telling me you had a magic trick to show me, that I should close my eyes … viola, hey presto, when I’d open them you’d be holding several baby ducklings, a palmful of precious gemstones, always something beautiful, impossible.” She curled her hands over Asami’s, tucking them back over her heart. “He would crush that beauty inside you, if he could. Vaatu, the Two-Faced God, the darkness in man. He is greedy, petty, cruel, just as we all have the capacity to be, deep down. Cowardly, too. You were only nine years old, playing a game. A fully-fledged coven is a force to be reckoned with. A lone witch is more vulnerable, easier prey. Or so he thought.

“I realise now that I was only delaying the inevitable by hiding from you what you are. I was like your father; I simply did not wish to see what was right in front of me. Perhaps what happened tonight is Raava’s way of punishing me for denying Her. Five is an incredibly magical number, you see. Even more magical than three.”

Asami sat up straighter. “What’re you—”

“I’m talking about your sisters, my love. Your coven.” Yasuko tucked a stray curl of hair behind Asami’s ear, her smile turning sad. “The world hasn’t seen a fully-fledged coven since I was your age. I loved them, grieved for them … I still do. But time marches on. Raava has blessed us with a new day, and a new generation of witches. You are all we have left. The magic is dying. Vaatu is rebuilding this world in his own image, using the blood and bones of witches as his bricks and mortar. You are all that stands in his way. You, Korra, Kuvira, Opal, and Jinora … you must go to them, and complete the circle. _Go._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> it's been nearly a year and all i've got to show for it is 2000 words of sad backstory, roast me in the comments section down below
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> ~SRS~
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> i've made some changes to the lore that are important. probably. idk if you're here for korrasami then you probably won't care. but. i do. so please reread chapters 4, 11, and 12 if you can. there may be some continuity errors but i usually go back and tweak things as i go so if you see something off, then don't worry, i already know about it, i'm just lazy. 
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> i appreciate the people who still comment on this fic and tell me how much it means to them. i'm still here. i still think about this story everyday, even if i still struggle to write as much as i used to. 2017 was a great year for me in all aspects aside from creativity. i'm only just realising how disconnected i am from the things i love doing. writing and immersing myself in another world for a few hours genuinely makes me a happier, lighter person. i think the pressure to produce quality work for other people gets to me sometimes, though. it's hard. sometimes i think about deleting my ao3 account but i would be really disappointed in myself if i did that without finishing this fic first. i remember saying to a commenter in one of the earlier chapters that i have a lot of things planned for the story and i was excited to share them with you guys. i still have those plans. a couple of surprises up my sleeve. it's going to be fun; we'll cry, we'll laugh, we'll dance, we'll sing. i couldn't forgive myself if i let all that go to waste. that's why i'm still here. if you're reading this, then i'm glad you're still here, too.


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